WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: Haruto
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
◈ The Pushover Young Lord in a Romance Fantasy Won't Take It Anymore ◈
Chapter 1: Seduce Me
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This world was a romance fantasy.
I suddenly realized that when I was nineteen. More precisely, I remembered my previous life.
In my past life, I enjoyed reading web novels aimed at men. Then, somehow, a pretty cover lured me into a romance-fantasy novel.
Romance fantasies often had one-off villains who got written out after only a few chapters.
“Astin von Cardenos” was one of those characters. A disposable villain who got written out after five chapters, sacrificed for a cathartic plot development.
“Gold, jewels, dresses. I gave you everything you asked for! What the hell was lacking?!”
“Do I look like such a materialistic person to you? You never gave me love. But this man is different. He sincerely loves and cherishes me.”
That crazy bitch took everything she could get, then pulled this shit.
Astin was clearly a one-off villain, but I sympathized with him more.
It was not a one-night fling or some childhood friend. She was his fiancée, bound to him through a formal engagement.
Try emptying your entire family fortune for your fiancée, only to get NTR in return. Anyone would lose their mind.
What made it even worse was the arrogant attitude of the man who stole his fiancée.
“Astin, we’ll settle this with Azelin on the line. Whoever wins this fight gets Azelin.”
“You...! You’re a fallen noble who couldn’t even meet my eyes at the academy!”
What the fuck was this?
It was a political marriage. Could it really be broken off through a duel with some cheating bastard who came out of nowhere?
The plot made no goddamn sense.
In the end, Astin lost the duel in spectacular fashion.
“This duel is invalid! I can’t accept it!!!”
After that, he cowardly tried to stab the other man in the back, got punched in the jaw by his fiancée, and passed out.
Astin von Cardenos made his exit looking pathetic until the very end.
...The reason I was talking so much about Astin was simple.
“Because I’m that Astin.”
The disposable villain who showered his fiancée with everything like a sucker, got NTR’d, and made a pathetic exit.
That was me.
Still, it was fine now that I knew.
I had come to my senses, and if I fixed things little by little, I could avoid Astin’s doomed future.
But being Astin was only the lesser evil.
In my past life, I grudgingly read that romance fantasy through to the end because I had mindlessly bought every chapter in a bundle.
That was why I knew exactly how utterly fucked this world would become.
‘Outer Gods invade, humanity is wiped out, and the world ends. A completely fucking hopeless bad ending.’
Outer Gods and their kin suddenly barged in, and the main characters got mind-controlled into killing each other.
The ending would not have felt out of place in a dark fantasy.
So NTR and reputation could wait. I had to save the world first.
* * *
There was a time when I thought that.
“If I hadn’t remembered my past life, I could’ve lived comfortably and died. Fuck.”
Ptooey.
I cursed and spat out a clot of congealed blood.
Standing in the middle of a raging inferno, I blankly looked around.
Blood spilled everywhere, flowing like rivers. The ravaged soil had lost all life, and corpses filled the fields where barley should have grown.
Everything I saw was red.
When I closed my eyes, the world turned black. When I opened them, it was red again.
How could a romance fantasy end like this?
“It is astonishing that a human could possess such power. Your skill truly lived up to your reputation.”
“What? You’re still alive?”
At my feet lay the Tongue That Whispers Mirages, better known as the Black Serpent.
It was one of the Outer God’s kin, and the one responsible for this devastation.
“You are worthy of being called the Bane of Evil. Who could have expected a mere human to become such a major obstacle?”
“Thanks. I even got recognition from the great Moon Clan.”
“You may take pride in it. Even the Moon Goddess has taken an interest in you. You too shall be embraced by the great goddess.”
“Is your goddess that generous?”
“She is a most broad-minded being. Even though you are mortal, she will gladly embrace a human such as yourself.”
“You really don’t understand a damn word I’m saying.”
Then again, I was the idiot for trying to talk to something that was not even human.
Knowing how this world would end, I had done everything I could to stop its destruction.
Including this one, I had personally cut down three of the Outer Gods’ servants.
Three out of seven. If humanity had managed to take care of the other four, perhaps the end could have been delayed.
‘What was I expecting from romance-fantasy idiots?’
The Crown Prince, the Northern Grand Duke, the saint of the Holy Empire, the Tower Master’s successor, and a Swordmaster.
While I fought for my life, they got distracted by women and let the world end up like this.
“You were right. What was the point of me struggling alone? Everyone else is dead, and the world is finished.”
I should have given up from the beginning, indulged in whatever I wanted, and died from getting laid too much.
“No, mortal. Your actions were not some pitiful struggle. They were a truly astonishing achievement.”
“You’re good at kissing ass. No wonder you’re called Tongue-Whatever.”
Still not letting you live.
Slash!
The Black Serpent’s head rolled across the ground and sank into a pool of blood.
I cut it off in one stroke before its words could soften me up.
Step.
Step.
That was when I heard someone approaching from far away.
Human footsteps.
There was a survivor. I had a feeling I knew exactly who it was without even looking.
The taste of iron filled my mouth, and my vision spun.
I used every last bit of strength to hold together a mind that felt ready to collapse.
Dragging my injured legs behind me, I headed toward the sound.
“Hey.”
It was the first time I had ever felt glad to see that face.
I waved first, but the other person’s expression darkened at once.
“You’ll ruin that pretty face. Relax your expression, will you?”
Lucia von Elzerna.
The protagonist of this world, and the current Commander-in-Chief of the Allied Human Forces.
She was the only person on this battlefield I could trust with my back.
If I had been alone, I would have joined those corpses long ago.
Lucia parted her cracked lips.
“Your arm?”
“My arm?”
“What happened to your arm? Where did you leave it?”
I had wondered why she looked like that. So that was it. I almost got the wrong idea.
I waved the stump where one arm had been. I had cauterized it with fire, so the bleeding had stopped.
“Ah, I guess you could say I bet it on the new era.”
“Quit talking bullshit.”
“With the Black Serpent. That bastard was pretty strong. I’m lucky it only took one arm. I nearly died.”
“...I thought you, of all people, would be fine.”
“I am fine. Can’t you see?”
“You call that fine, dumbass?”
“You lost an eye yourself.”
Whoosh.
Lucia tossed something with one hand.
It was the severed head of the Black Fangs, another of the Outer Gods’ kin.
As expected of this world’s protagonist.
“Are you the only one alive?”
“They died long ago, why ask? Belbruck, Alex, Valerian, all of them.”
“I see.”
Lucia accepted it calmly.
She had already seen too much to grieve over her comrades’ deaths and tear herself apart over them.
“I recovered Azelin’s body over there. Do you want to see her? She was once your fiancée.”
“Why would I want to see the face of a cheating bitch? I don’t even want to pray for her.”
“Pfft. I knew you’d say that.”
“Huh? What’s gotten into you? You’re not even getting mad?”
Azelin was my cheating ex-fiancée, but she had been Lucia’s academy classmate and close friend.
I expected Lucia to sharply tell me to watch my mouth.
Instead, she only shrugged and staggered over.
Thud.
She dropped down beside me as though collapsing.
When I sat down too, she offered me a cigarette. I pushed it away.
“I don’t smoke.”
“I know. You said you wanted to live until you were old and senile. After seeing that, do you still feel the same way?”
Lucia pointed overhead.
The sky was completely stained red, and a bottomless hole had opened in its center.
Black things were pouring from it in endless waves.
“I still won’t smoke. Why would I light my own funeral incense before I die?”
“You’re surprising. You look like the biggest chain-smoker around.”
“Your face and your mouth don’t match either.”
“I used to be well-behaved, you know? It’s all their fault.”
Fwoosh!
Lucia lit the cigarette with a flame from her fingertip.
Tilting her head back, she exhaled a cloud of harsh smoke.
“Astin.”
“What?”
“Is it really over now?”
“Yeah.”
“We’re both going to die, right?”
“Probably.”
For a while, neither of us said anything.
Lucia silently puffed out cigarette smoke.
It struck me again how much she had changed.
She had lived with grace and composure, admired by countless young ladies.
Thinking of her old self, she had seemed more suited to high society than a battlefield.
The Lucia before me felt unfamiliar.
Soot clung to the bridge of her nose. Her lips were dry, cracked, and split. Her remaining dark gray eye was marked by an old scar.
Even her skin was split like drought-stricken earth. The noble beauty that had once been flawless had faded long ago.
“Still, I’m glad I’m not alone.”
“...”
“I’m even more glad that it’s you. I mean that.”
“Why are you making me cringe?”
Trying to get all warm and fuzzy at the end.
We were not the type to exchange words like that.
“You know, Astin.”
Lucia let out a relieved breath of smoke.
“Would things have been different if I’d walked the right path like you?”
“What are you talking about now? Just shut up.”
“I don’t understand who I was back then. Why did I let myself get pushed around by men like that? Until the world became this way. I should’ve said no and refused them...”
“Hey.”
I had wanted to end things on a good note.
But I could not say anything kind. It was too disgusting.
“Shut up before I say something worse.”
Lucia had received the world’s favor in full.
Swordsmanship, magic, spirit arts.
She had talent in everything, and her mind was brilliant too.
Public administration, accounting, diplomacy, linguistics, law, astronomy, engineering, magitech.
She monopolized every field of study until the people around her got sick of studying altogether.
Lucia had also been chosen by the Holy Sword, which had not moved for three hundred years.
The World Tree recognized her and bestowed the divine artifact Mistilteinn upon her.
Spirit Kings lined up to make contracts with her, and even the proud Grand Dukes of the Demon Realm clung to her skirts and begged to meet her.
A protagonist loved by everything in the world.
Yet despite being born with such blessings, all she did was date men.
She danced with the Crown Prince in some corner of the Imperial Palace, exchanged embarrassingly sweet love letters with the Tower Master, and held secret outdoor meetings with the Northern Grand Duke under the pretense of hunting magical beasts.
Of course, Lucia was not the only problem.
Every prominent ruler on the continent sat around talking about love.
But her indulgence alone carried a different weight from the indulgence of hundreds or thousands of others.
If Lucia alone had devoted herself to saving the world, the ending might have turned out differently.
“I’ll be blunt. You were crazy about men. You were a slut who had fun jumping from one man to another.”
“...”
“You came to your senses now? It’s because all your men died and finally knocked some sense into you.”
Even under that barbed verbal assault, Lucia did not offer a pathetic excuse.
She only lowered her head weakly and hugged her knees.
“You’re right about all of it. I was crazy. I was an idiot. It was all my fault.”
Lucia threw the cigarette butt to the ground and crushed it beneath her foot.
Seeing her look so pitiful, I could not bring myself to curse her anymore.
Yeah. What was the point of weighing right and wrong now?
We had three minutes at most.
In three minutes, both of us would be torn to pieces by those black things.
“Ha, fuck. It was all pointless.”
Lying flat on my back, I muttered emptily.
“Trying to play the hero and all. If I knew it would end like this, I should’ve spent my time embracing pretty women too, following your example.”
I had struggled so hard to save the world. To stop that godawful bad ending.
Now it all seemed ridiculous.
Boom! Boom!
The horrifying thunder of something shaking the ground drew closer.
The grotesque black creatures pouring from the sky were steadily tightening their encirclement.
Lucia let out a self-mocking laugh.
“I thought I could die without regrets, but I guess not. I don’t want to die like this. There’s still a dream I haven’t achieved.”
“What, are you going to seduce another man?”
“I won’t deny it. This time, I want to be the one to seduce someone first.”
Both of us had run out of strength long ago. The mana circuits we had forced beyond their limits had already burned out from overload.
My vision blurred, and my eyelids felt impossibly heavy.
With my eyes closed, I calmly accepted death.
“Hey, Astin. Have you ever heard of Deus Harven’s legacy?”
That sudden question made me open my eyes.
Deus. Deus Harven...
The name sounded strangely familiar. Then I remembered that the legendary seventh-rank archmage had been called that.
“Why bring that up when we’re about to die?”
“The research Harven clung to until his death. You know, the Time Magic he tried to complete? You know it ended unfinished, leaving behind only theories.”
“I know the basics. So why do you keep bringing it up?”
“I think I completed it.”
“What?”
I immediately sat up.
“Maybe... I can turn back time.”
I could only stare at her in a daze.
Knowing Lucia, her claim was probably true.
She was the protagonist who had received every opportunity and blessing in the world.
With Lucia’s overwhelming talent, perhaps she truly had completed the miracle that even the great archmage had failed to achieve.
“This is it.”
Lucia took something the size of her palm from inside her clothes. It was an old silver pocket watch.
I could feel an enormous amount of mana condensed within it.
“Ha, haha.”
A laugh escaped me.
It felt as though a tiny ember, buried beneath mud, had started burning again.
“But...”
Squeeze.
Lucia tightly gripped the pocket watch. Blood stained her hand.
“Even if I turn back time, I don’t know if I can do this well. No, honestly, I... I’m not confident that I can protect the world.”
“Why are you saying something so weak?”
“Even if I move forward as righteously as you did, I don’t think I can save the world. What can I do with this mindset? I guess I can’t be strong like you.”
Lucia forcibly opened my remaining right hand.
A heavy, cold lump of metal settled into my palm.
“What are you doing...?”
“I’m sorry.”
Tick-tock. Tick-tock. Tick-tock.
I heard the seconds ticking. The pocket watch’s mechanism began to turn violently.
“You can think I’m dumping the responsibility on you. You can curse me.”
Lucia raised her lowered head and looked at me.
Then she forced the corners of her mouth upward, as though sewing them into a smile.
“You’re different from me. So please, save the world. I’m asking you, Astin.”
So what this crazy bitch meant was...
She was dumping every burden on me.
Fwoosh!
Before I could protest, blue light burst from the gaps in the watch. At the same time, threads of mana in geometric patterns wrapped around my body.
As the light intensified, the red battlefield began to bleach white.
Space warped grotesquely, time and space flowed backward, and a strange sensation crushed my entire body.
“Seduce me when you go back.”
Lucia’s face was clear amid my flickering vision.
A faint blush bloomed on the face of a woman standing before death.
Lucia’s old face, utterly out of place on that horrific battlefield.
“Make it so I love only you. You love only me too. It’s the dream I couldn’t fulfill in this life.”
Lucia’s final voice lingered in my ears like an echo.
* * *
“Is the Young Master still shut away in his room?”
“He hasn’t eaten either. I wonder if something happened...”
“He met his fiancée yesterday, didn’t he? Do you think something happened with Lady Azelin?”
“That lady is strange too. Why get engaged if she did not even love him?”
“That’s what political marriages are like.”
“Maybe his fiancée rejected him? If he’s starving himself like this, it sounds like he’s heartbroken.”
“Argh, that fucking bitch.”
“Gasp! I think we were right!”
“What do we do? Did he hear all that?”
“Come on, everyone. Back to work.”
The maids who had been whispering scattered in all directions.
Inside Astin’s room.
“That fucking Lucia, dumping everything on me and leaving.”
Astin gritted his teeth and trembled with rage.
Footnotes:
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