Become a Hype Man
The moment I came to, I realized I'd been dropped somewhere I'd never seen before.
"What the hell is this...?"
Strange clothes. Hair in every color imaginable. Architecture that didn't belong to any place I knew. I wandered around trying to figure out what on earth had happened, and learned absolutely nothing.
This... isn't a dream, is it?
Just as the confusion was piling higher with no end in sight, I spotted a child crying.
"Mamaaa... where did you go..."
I hurried over.
"Hey, kid. You lost?"
"*sniff*... Yeah."
"Me too... *sob*..."
"...?"
Thank god. At least I had someone to share the misery with.
"Where the hell even is this... *sob*..."
I was just getting comfortable enough to cry my heart out when the child gave my back a cautious little pat.
"Um... please calm down, mister."
"You think I can calm down right now?!"
"E-even so, you can't just sit here crying!"
"I don't know what else to do, you dummy!"
What would a kid know about how I felt. I didn't have the faintest clue what I was supposed to do, so I just sat there, drained and helpless — when a kind voice drifted over.
"You appear to have lost your way."
I lifted my head toward the sound. A woman was standing in front of the child.
"Might your mother have been wearing a yellow ribbon?"
"Yes! Yes, that's her!"
"She was searching for you desperately by the fountain. Go to her at once. And do take care not to lose your way again."
The moment she patted the child's head, an impossible name spilled out of the kid's mouth.
"Th-thank you so much, Lady Rania!"
Rania. That was, without a doubt, the name of the protagonist of Protect the Academy!.
Come to think of it...
Hair like a living flame. Clear eyes cut like worked rubies. White skin that had somehow never known a burn. Her face was as expressionless as ever, and that only made her more beautiful.
It matches the novel's description down to the last detail.
Had the ending been so godawful that even my dreams had turned into this? But if that were the case—
My senses are way too vivid for a dream...
I was sitting there, stunned, as the clash between what I was feeling and what I knew to be possible refused to resolve — and then my eyes met Rania's.
"So. Who are you?"
I was so startled I opened my mouth, and—
Admiration (Ex) has activated.
"Boomer talk?"
Oh, for fuck's sake. Why was my mouth doing whatever it wanted.
"Boomer... talk...?"
Confusion flickered across Rania's face. Fair enough — Protect the Academy! was set in a medieval fantasy world. Of course she wouldn't know what that meant.
Which, put another way, meant I had an opening. I scrambled to explain.
"Sorry, Rania. My tongue got twisted."
"...?"
Her eyes widened, just a little.
"My name...?"
"Ah."
Was she thrown off because I already knew it? I reached out before answering.
"I saw it on your exam ticket."
"That is not what I meant... To address someone by their given name alone, omitting the family name — that is, well..."
"That is...?"
"Hah... Never mind. Let us simply move on."
She still looked like something didn't sit right, but she seemed willing to write it off as a minor incident.
"So. Your name is..."
Rania shook off the last of her confusion and shifted her gaze to the right side of my chest.
"Eugene. Eugene, is it."
"Huh?"
That's not my name, though? Wondering what she was even looking at, I dropped my eyes — and an unfamiliar robe filled my vision.
It wasn't just the robe. My line of sight had gotten higher without me noticing. Solid muscle shifted beneath the fabric. And above all, an ink-black longsword hung blatantly at my waist.
Don't tell me...?
This wasn't a dream? If what was happening right now wasn't a dream—
It's transmigration!!
The second I understood, I yanked the sword free.
"What do you think you're—!!"
Rania drew right after me, but that wasn't what mattered right now. I brought my face to the naked blade.
Black hair. Black eyes. A man I'd seen once in the novel's illustrations.
An extra. The hype man, Eugene.
A hype man, for the uninitiated, is the guy whose entire job is to spit out lines like these and make the protagonist look incredible:
"WHAAAAAT?! Luffy's bounty is five billion berries?!"
"Damn, is this Naruto vs. Sasuke fight for real?! This is a clash between the strongest in the entire setting!!"
"That's Dio for you! Casually doing the things we never could! That's what makes it thrilling! That's what makes you look up to him!!"
"Of all the people to end up as..."
"Wait! Do not loosen your grip!"
"Jeeeez..."
Clang!
Rania's warning might as well have been wind. The sword hit the ground. Getting transmigrated was already unfair enough — and of all bodies, it had to be Eugene's.
He was a supporting character who showed up in chapter one of Protect the Academy!, the first person among the Academy's incoming students to cross paths with Rania.
"Puhah! So that's the might of House Vulcanus!!!"
"No. The Red Heat Sword."
"Eh."
And in all of three paragraphs, Rania's Red Heat Sword turned him into a charred black smear and he exited the stage.
"Rania, you're the first woman who's ever beaten the crap out of me."
Somehow, having enrolled in the Academy as an F-Rank, Eugene proceeded to trail after Rania constantly. Whenever she fought a duel, he'd be right there bursting with admiration.
"Jeez, as expected of Lady Rania's Red Heat Sword!!!"
"Hey now, I, who had never lost even once, lost to that sword!!"
"Whoa! You know Lady Rania's Red Heat Sword too?! The Red Heat Sword is. Seriously. Strong."
The Academy's hype man. That was me now.
"Are you all right, Eugene?"
Her face was still blank, but there was worry in the words. Yeah. Get it together.
If I really had transmigrated into Protect the Academy!, then this scene was right before the Academy entrance exam. I didn't have enough information, which meant sticking to the original plot was my best bet.
I took the hand she offered and stood.
"Thanks for worrying about me."
"Ugh. Right."
Wipe. Wipe. Wipe. Rania immediately started cleaning her hand.
"..."
The reaction stung a little, but that wasn't what I needed to be thinking about. I placed my right hand over my chest and observed the proper forms.
"I formally request a duel."
Extra Eugene's challenge. This was the first condition for saving Rania.
Extra Eugene's defeat. It looks like a one-off gag, but it actually plays a major role in Rania's entrance exam.
Her original rank is B+, but the fight with Eugene loosens her up. Thanks to that, she's measured half a rank higher, at A-minus, and gets assigned to the A-rank class by the slimmest of margins.
In other words, it has a huge impact on everything that follows.
I waited with a serious face for her to accept. Rania stepped right up to me.
"Will you be all right?"
"Huh? With what?"
"Have a look around you."
"Around me?"
I turned my head the way she'd indicated.
"L-Lady Rania looked this way!!"
"No she didn't, you bastard!! She was looking at ME!"
"About five kids... If Lady Rania brings home the money, I'll be a devoted househusband..."
Crowds had gathered just to catch a glimpse of Rania, already famous throughout the Empire.
Yeah. I've definitely been transmigrated.
The rainbow of heads in every direction made it sink in all over again. I turned back to her.
"So? What about them?"
Rania let out a thin sigh, then dropped her voice to a whisper meant for me alone.
"A duel must produce a winner and a loser, must it not. And with a crowd this size, there is scarcely a better place for a loser's story to be twisted in the telling."
Ah. That. A warning that if I lost here, ugly rumors would ride the crowd's mouths and take on a life of their own.
I was secretly glad. Because Rania — the novel's protagonist, that blunt, stiff Rania — was worrying about me. Which was exactly why I had to go through with it.
If I didn't lose here, she might meet an even worse end than in the original.
I smiled and asked her the same thing back.
"So? What about them?"
The moment I made it clear I wouldn't change my mind, the corner of Rania's mouth lifted, just barely.
"...You are a man of fortitude."
"Hm? What was that?"
"Ah, it is nothing. No. Never mind. Eugene. I shall accept your challenge."
The faint smile vanished, and her beloved blade — the sword that was as much a part of her as her own name — came free of its sheath. Even in the middle of drawing and calling up her Aura, Rania Vulcanus was fiercely, almost violently beautiful.
"Rania Vulcanus, eldest daughter of House Vulcanus."
"Eugene. No family name."
Our blades touched. That alone was enough for her to read me, and so she asked at once:
"Have you a preferred form of duel?"
As I was now, I was a perpetual F-Rank extra. Rania was an A-minus protagonist. So the format I chose was—
"A single-strike duel."
