The Proposal
The butterfly effect is a real bastard.
Not that the phenomenon itself has done anything wrong. Of course a change in conditions can change the outcome — that much is obvious. But the mere existence of such a thing also means that the tiniest choice can rewrite a human life from top to bottom.
“You there.”
So the butterfly effect is a bastard. At least as far as I’m concerned.
Put simply: there have been a few choices in my life that I regret. The ones that landed me exactly where I am now.
The big one, for instance.
I never should have played that game.
Abbreviated: Sera
Academy fantasy. The orthodox, tender coming-of-age drama of bright young men and women. Characters thick with otaku flavor, yet comfortingly familiar and solidly crafted.
A perfectly fine game.
It would have stayed that way if I hadn’t been stuffed inside it.
Does that make any sense? You play a game a little and suddenly you’re trapped in it? If I’d been isekai’d for trash-talking the work and catching the eye of some godlike developer, or because I was obsessively attached to the protagonist — if there had been some clear reason — I might have accepted it.
Instead I cleared it start to finish like always, watched the ending, nodded with a satisfied little that was fun, and went to bed.
Next day: transmigration. Ta-da.
“You there. Are you listening?”
I don’t answer. Maybe if I stay quiet, she won’t realize I’m here.
Yeah. Please.
“I already know you’re inside, you know. You’d do well to open the door quietly.”
“...”
“I’ve already inquired with Dame Ophelia, the dorm supervisor. You have no classes scheduled today, I hear.”
“...”
An actual stalker would have more restraint.
Fine. Time to think of another approach—
“Very well. So you mean to ignore me to the end.”
A sigh-laced sentence drifted through the dormitory door.
“Then I shall cut my way in.”
This insane woman.
I didn’t even have time to finish the thought before a jet-black blade — a sword that seemed to drink every scrap of light around it — punched straight through the door of my private room.
The dormitories of the Imperial Academy Elphante are built to keep the students inside safe even if a rampaging large-class monster goes berserk. Breaking one open is not supposed to be easy by human standards.
Which means the young lady slicing through the door like cardboard is, in a word, terrifying.
“...Isn’t this a violation of academy regulations?”
“Enforcement of disciplinary procedures for regulatory violations falls to the Student Council. As it happens, I currently hold the office of Student Council President.”
She stated her intention to abuse her authority in a perfectly flat, inflectionless voice.
The black longsword slid neatly back into its sheath — a black scabbard that matched her black attire. Head to toe she was dressed in pitch-dark uniform, yet the only face left exposed was terrifyingly pale. As if that stark contrast weren’t enough, her eyes were a vivid crimson, and white hair spilled all the way down her back.
And binding that entire eye-catching appearance into something coherent was her distinctive aristocratic air.
A memorable look. One I could never forget even if I tried.
“I came because I have something to say. You have been deliberately avoiding me of late, have you not?”
“...”
“Roughly... thirty-two times, was it?”
“...Why would you count something like that one by one?”
I answered curtly even as I raked together the information leaping up in my head and tried to sort it.
Elnor. Student Council President of Elphante Academy.
Gifted in both letters and arms. Young lady of House Tristan, and one of the academy’s most famous super-socialites across every year.
A human born glittering. By every metric imaginable, she had no business crossing paths with a nobody freshman like me.
That was how it should have been, originally.
“...”
And frankly, staying uninvolved would have been far better for me as well.
A few more images spilled through my mind — illustrations and CGs I’d seen inside the “original work.”
Elnor drenched in blood. Elnor swinging that black longsword and piling up mountains of corpses. Elnor with those crimson eyes blazing as she commanded hordes of demons and monsters.
And so on. And so on.
One thing was certain: no matter how you looked at her, she radiated a single consistent impression.
Terrifyingly evil person.
Yes — no point hiding it.
This woman is the final boss of the world of Sera. The human who will, if the protagonist fails to stop her, eventually hurl this entire world into a pit of fire.
Someone who should have brushed past an extra like me with nothing more than a glance and been done with it.
“You already know perfectly well why I have come this far.”
But by now, all of that is already too late.
The butterfly’s wingbeats had stacked and stacked until they became the situation standing in front of me.
Those red eyes fixed me with a merciless stare. Her grip tightened again on the hilt of the black longsword. The heavy atmosphere she always carried grew even more grave.
And then her mouth opened once more — and released the “storm” those butterfly wings had made.
“...”
Honestly.
No matter how many times I hear it, that sentence never gets any less dizzying. I clutch my spinning head.
Dawood Campbell.
Heir to a backwater barony with a fingernail’s worth of renown. Academy freshman. Bottom-rung extra of this world.
And that man was, right now, being proposed to by the woman who would destroy the world within a few years.