I'm More Suspicious Than the Original Protagonist
Kyle Leonhart.
The protagonist of Dragon Heart Romance.
The character the player controls in the game.
A half-blood with only a fraction of dragon heritage.
No noble house, no pure-blood lineage—yet the heroines flock to him thanks to his peculiar Dragon Heart and ridiculous growth potential.
In short: the living embodiment of protagonist plot armor.
In gallery terms, the official cheat character the developers shove down your throat.
And right now that protagonist was looking straight at me.
More precisely, at the Yeouiju I was hiding against my chest.
I instinctively took a step back.
Kyle stopped too.
He blinked like he’d just realized how weird he was being.
“Ah, sorry. I was staring, huh?”
His voice was surprisingly ordinary.
I had expected the original protagonist to glow a little, or for background music to kick in, or for dialogue choices to pop up.
Reality was none of those things.
He was just a slightly tired-looking male student.
Honestly, for a main character he looked pretty average.
But the gallery veterans fear guys like him the most.
The ones who look normal until they awaken and shred the entire balance sheet.
“Just… your mana signature’s unusual.”
“Ah.”
I hugged the Yeouiju tighter.
Kyle’s gaze followed it.
That was all it took for the students around us to start whispering again.
“Who’s that guy?”
“I heard he’s a half-blood.”
“Oh, that special Dragon Heart freak?”
“External Heart meets special-case hybrid. Nice.”
“What’s wrong with this year’s freshmen?”
What’s wrong with this year’s freshmen was a question I wanted answers to myself.
I wanted to leave comments too.
Kyle gave an awkward smile, clearly unused to the attention.
Early-game Kyle was always like that.
A half-blood standing out among pure-blood noble dragons.
Neither fully dragon nor fully human—stuck in that awkward middle ground.
So the early chapters were full of disdain and suspicion.
Then, little by little, his skill and character won the heroines over.
That was the original story.
But the situation now was completely different.
Someone even weirder than Kyle had shown up.
That someone was me.
I was more suspicious than the original protagonist.
I hated this role with every fiber of my being.
“Did your exam results come back bad too?”
Kyle asked carefully.
I hesitated.
What was I supposed to say?
No internal Dragon Heart.
No wings.
No Breath organ.
Species: undetermined.
Suspected external heart.
Subject insists it is not a heart.
Listing them one by one would just be a live reading of my official “certified lunatic” certificate.
And every single item came with an invisible prefix: by dragon standards.
That was the real problem.
I wasn’t a dragon. I was a yong.
But the second I said that out loud, the faculty’s management chart would probably gain a new line: “Tendency to deny own species.”
“I’m screwed.”
I kept it short.
Kyle gave another awkward laugh.
“Same here.”
No.
You’re still the original protagonist.
You get to awaken later and romance every heroine.
I screamed that inside my head, but none of it left my mouth.
I just nodded instead.
“Hang in there.”
“You too.”
Then a cold voice cut in from the side.
“Are the two of you aware that you are blocking the middle of the hallway?”
I turned.
White Dragon.
Selene Frostheim.
Silver-white hair.
Icy blue eyes.
A sharp, freezing presence.
She looked like winter scenery given human form.
The third heroine of the original.
Cool-type slender beauty.
Student Council President of Drakenheim Academy.
Rules, order, hierarchy—everything that mattered to her type.
She looked between the two of us.
A short glance at Kyle.
A long one at me.
Why am I getting the longer look?
I’m the victim here.
Selene’s gaze traveled methodically over the horns on my head, my back, my tail, then the Yeouiju against my chest.
Colder and more precise than the examiner’s eyes had been.
“Cheongha.”
She spoke.
“Correct?”
“Yes.”
“By authority of the Student Council President, I have placed you on the Watchlist.”
“Excuse me?”
“No wings, no Breath organ, and you walk around carrying your Dragon Heart outside your body. Of course you’re going on the list.”
“Hold on a second! Cheongha is simply different. Treating her as a person of interest for that reason is completely unfair!”
I was about to protest when Lydia stepped in for me.
She sounded exactly like a mom insisting her kid was nothing like that, but if this was the kind of mom I got, I was all for it.
Waaah, baby Cheongha here—help me, Lydia Mama.
Selene nodded without changing expression.
“The Saintess’s objection is overruled. It is still unclear whether freshman Cheongha is even a dragon.”
“Furthermore, on her very first day of enrollment she has already engaged in disruptive behavior such as provoking Lady Rubellion.”
“That was her starting the fight—”
“Regardless, for the reasons stated you are hereby entered into the Watchlist effective today.”
Selene ignored my protest and flipped open a small notebook.
“Cheongha. Species undetermined. Attribute undetermined. No Breath organ. No wings. Internal Dragon Heart not detected. Carries Dragon Heart externally. Entered into Watchlist.”
“Isn’t that a human-rights—wait, a dragon-rights violation?”
And the classification was wrong, I wanted to add.
But that notebook already looked stronger than my dragon rights.
“This is Student Council business.”
“The Student Council is terrifying.”
“It is necessary for maintaining order.”
“I’ve never met a single decent person who uses the word ‘order’.”
“That is prejudice.”
“It’s lived experience.”
There was almost no emotion in Selene’s voice.
That blank face made her even scarier.
Erika was the type who charged in openly.
Lydia was the type who approached gently.
Selene was different.
She bound people with rules.
In gallery terms: the armband who shows up with an official notice.
The absolute worst type to deal with.
The natural enemy of every shitposter.
The kind who would quietly screenshot my comment and pin it for eternity.
A human-shaped report button was standing right in front of me.
“In particular, a training-ground reservation has been filed for you today.”
“I didn’t file anything.”
“Erika Rubellion filed it.”
“I already refused her.”
“It is not a duel. It is listed as ability verification.”
“Isn’t that the same thing?”
“Nominally, they are different.”
Is this armband speech for real?
I wanted to bury my face in my hands, but I was still clutching the Yeouiju and was out of free limbs.
Kyle spoke up carefully.
“Um… is there anything I can help with?”
Selene and I both turned to look at him at the exact same time.
Kyle flinched.
“I mean, you both look like you’re in trouble…”
He’s nice.
Proper original-protagonist levels of nice.
But if you jump in now the routes get even more tangled.
Originally he was supposed to meet the heroines himself.
Instead Erika was trying to drag me to the training ground, Lydia was fretting over my Yeouiju, and Selene had just put me on the Watchlist.
At this rate I was going to steal every single one of Kyle’s early events.
In an otome game this was a serious problem.
A bug character that hijacks the protagonist’s events.
That was me.
At this point I didn’t feel like an Azure Dragon so much as a malicious mod file.
The kind that, once installed, breaks every original event flag.
The sort of patch that would get absolutely roasted in the comments.
“I’m fine.”
I answered quickly.
“Kyle, you should just take care of your own schedule.”
“How do you know my name?”
Ah.
I froze solid.
Selene’s eyes narrowed.
Lydia quietly turned her gaze on me as well.
Kyle looked bewildered.
I’m dead.
I claimed I knew nothing about the game, yet I knew the original protagonist’s name.
That was suspicious.
Extremely suspicious.
“I saw it on the entrance ceremony roster.”
I said it as casually as I could manage.
“I’ve got good eyes.”
“The roster has not been made public yet.”
Selene replied instantly.
This armband is the real deal.
Her fact-checking speed was lethal.
If someone like her existed in a gallery, shitposts wouldn’t last three minutes.
I screamed internally.
Kyle started looking at me even more strangely.
Lydia’s worry deepened, and Selene wrote something in her notebook.
“Adding special note.”
“Don’t add anything.”
“Possible prior knowledge of unreleased freshman data.”
“It’s not.”
“Or prophetic-type ability.”
“Even more not.”
Still clutching the Yeouiju to my chest, I took a step backward.
I wanted to run.
I really wanted to run.
But a familiar voice rang out from behind me.
“There you are.”
Erika.
The Red Dragon princess was walking toward us with a thoroughly delighted expression.
Behind her trailed a teaching assistant holding a training-ground usage permit.
“Cheongha.”
Erika said.
“It’s time for our appointment.”
“I never made an appointment with you.”
“I did.”
“That’s what you call an appointment?”
“Yep.”
Is she a tyrant?
No—even tyrants at least issue a formal proclamation.
This girl just posted the notice inside her own head and called it done.
Lydia cut in anxiously.
“Lady Erika, Cheongha’s examination results haven’t even been finalized yet. Forcing her to use her abilities—”
“I’m not forcing her.”
Erika smiled.
“Just one little flame. That’s all.”
“That is forcing her.”
I said.
But nobody seemed to consider my opinion important.
Selene closed her notebook.
“If conducted under Student Council President supervision, it can be approved.”
“Please do not approve it.”
“Confirming your abilities is necessary for the maintenance of order.”
“What about my order?”
“We can discuss that at a later date.”
Why is everything “at a later date”?
The administration of this world apparently worked like this.
Whether someone else’s heart was actually a heart: later discussion.
My human rights: later discussion.
My desperate plea to be left alone: later discussion.
Kyle raised a hand awkwardly.
“Can I come watch too?”
I looked at him.
No.
Absolutely not.
If you come the original plot gets even more tangled.
But it was already too late.
Erika gave him a sidelong glance and said,
“Spectators are always welcome. A fight’s no fun without an audience.”
You just said it wasn’t a duel…
Kyle nodded.
Lydia said she would come as well.
Selene declared she would supervise under Student Council authority.
I looked up at the sky.
Unlike my gloomy mood, the sky was a clear, bright blue.
An Azure Dragon was supposed to rise into the heavens…
Instead I was being dragged off to the training ground.