I Like a Fast Start
I like a fast start.
Maybe because I was born in Korea, I've always preferred things fast.
The internet has to be fast. Work has to get done fast.
I speedran games, and I ate my meals in a hurry.
But there was one thing I could never do quickly.
"Why are you so concerned about me?"
"That's…"
"Yes?"
"It's nothing."
Kim Yu-seong, age twenty-five.
A man who, on a female friend's recommendation, had ended up reading the romance fantasy novel Academy's Fake Princess.
"It's not 'nothing'!"
And sure enough, being a female-oriented romance fantasy, it had a particular talent for leaving my chest tight with frustration.
Is it because male-oriented stuff is packed with catharsis? I just can't get used to this whenever I see it.
From my personal experience, women place enormous weight on emotional connection. Ride the mood well and you can overcome looks and become a boyfriend; shatter the atmosphere and you're finished.
Reflecting those readers' tastes, the male leads in female-oriented romance fantasies—despite high status and formidable power—treated the heroine like a precious jewel.
That part clashed with my nature so badly it stuck in my throat like a mouthful of sweet potato.
If I were in there, I'd just drop a confession right away.
At the start, the heroine is a nobody. Her situation is so dire that even a confession from an ordinary noble's son would be something she'd have to accept. Then, as befits a protagonist, she grows steadily, tracing an upward curve.
"A Saintess? This shabby woman?"
"Calling her shabby is rather rude."
"Y-you… why are you…?"
Then the male leads compete to claim the woman they could have easily taken at the beginning. Eventually it becomes a reverse harem, or only one chosen man remains.
Guys falling head over heels for a woman and running the country into the ground is just a side effect.
The men surrounding the heroine are all impressive people—the crown prince, the eldest son of the northern grand duke, a prodigy of the grand mage, a saint, and more. When men like that hand over their livers and gallbladders for a woman, their families are left fuming, and so is the country.
In that sense, I think the best option is for some random guy to just snatch the girl and run.
I considered bringing this up when I met my female friend tomorrow, then dropped the idea.
She'd probably just say something like, "You just don't understand the joy of romance fantasy!" Guys would agree with me, though.
Besides, it wasn't something that would actually happen. Getting sucked into a novel is the kind of unrealistic nonsense that only occurs in actual novels.
Academy's Fake Princess is, as the title suggests, a female-oriented romance fantasy set at an academy. In short, it's the story of Alice, the daughter of a poor baron, who wraps every outstanding man at the academy around her finger.
"Young Master, we will soon arrive at Mado Academy."
"What's my name?"
"Pardon?"
Karen Anders, the maid who had followed me all the way to the academy, looked at me strangely after hearing the question.
Right. It wasn't that I'd forgotten both my modern memories and this world's memories. It was pure denial of reality.
"You mean your name, Young Master? You are Young Master Yosef. If the alcohol hasn't worn off yet, shall I bring a recovery potion?"
"No need for a recovery potion. Right—so we are on our way to the academy?"
"…Yes, that's correct."
"Ah. I see."
After that, my mouth simply stopped. The shock of identifying myself through my own name had hit me full force.
I really got stuck in the body of a thoroughly rotten bastard. Couldn't I have possessed some nameless extra? Why did I have to end up in this annoying body!
Yosef Goldrein.
The third son of a rootless noble family—originally commoner merchants who bought their title by pouring enormous sums of money at the emperor's feet.
…What a bumper crop of children. In the worst sense.
And the Goldrein family was also the villain house that appeared at every junction connecting the heroine with the male leads. My siblings and I all had rotten personalities, so we'd clash with the heroine; she'd ask a male lead for help, and in the process of defeating us they would build their bonds—using us as sandbags.
Watching them keep coming back no matter how many times they get trampled, I don't know whether to call them stupid or just pure evil.
How bad was my personality? Just looking at how carefully Karen was reading my mood right now was enough to tell.
"Um… Young Master Yosef?"
"What is it?"
Karen's family, the Anders, was a family of scribes with a longer history than the Goldreins. Over time, however, the house had declined, fallen into debt, and eventually become vassals of the Goldrein family entirely. Still, because she carried strong blood, Father had told me not to lay a hand on Karen carelessly.
Of course, until just a few hours ago, my head had been full of schemes for how to push Karen into bed. Which meant I'd been a below-average wastrel of a young master.
Let's see. Just the women I've touched number over ten. I should be grateful there are no bastards, I guess.
Even in the modern world there were playboys—but using money and threats to force women into submission wasn't dating. It was a crime. The more I looked through the memories, the more nauseated I felt.
Yosef hadn't been an impulsive thug. He was a despicable man who only targeted people weaker than himself and shut them up with money.
Right now, only Karen and I were in the carriage. And the originally strange and vicious Yosef was acting strangely. What would Karen, who knew my womanizing history, be thinking?
"It's nothing…"
Karen seemed to have chosen the path of holding her breath as much as possible and not getting on my nerves. She pressed herself into the corner of the carriage like someone avoiding hazardous material, trying to escape my gaze.
I tried a light compliment to ease the atmosphere.
"Cute."
"What?! I'm not cute!"
Only after the words left my mouth did I realize—that wasn't something the original Yosef would say to a woman he was after. It wasn't the reaction I'd wanted, but hearing that nonsense seemed to loosen her tension a little.
Poke a hamster with your finger and it either bites or burrows into its nest. Karen looked like the latter. Her blue hair and eyes were interesting, and the maid uniform suited her well; there was no reason to look at her unfavorably.
That kind of reaction is only natural. Considering what the Yosef in my memories did to Karen, I'm lucky she isn't cursing me out.
After spending an awkward stretch of time with Karen, we finally arrived at the academy. My heart pounded hard at having come to the setting of the novel.
—Splat.
At least, until I felt something cold and sticky on my back.
"O-oh, I'm so sorry!"
"…"
"Kyaaah?!"
The person involved and I were both standing still, yet Karen screamed on our behalf.
It's not a car accident. Why is she screaming like that?
No one was hurt, and no blood was flowing—I thought she was overreacting.
Then again, considering the price of this outfit, screaming might be warranted. About equal to Karen's yearly wages, maybe.
"Y-you…!"
"I'm sorry! I'm so sorry!"
I waved Karen's fussing down and asked directly.
"What's your name?"
"Alice, sir!"
"Your family?"
"Hornlight!"
The moment I heard the name and house, I nearly made a fuss myself.
Still a baron's daughter without a single coin to her name. But in a few years she would become the empire's Saintess, and four men would go to war over her. And that woman was bowing her head before me right now.
I didn't even need to go looking for her.
Whatever it is, a fast start is advantageous. The heroine was no exception.
How do I reel this one in…
Come to think of it, Yosef meets Alice early in the novel. Not a good encounter—just like now, Alice smashes ice cream all over his clothes. In the original, I would slap her across the face and rain curses down with a look of contempt. When she says she has no money to pay, I'd call her a penniless beggar and humiliate her. That becomes the trigger for one of the male leads to feel pity for her and form a connection.
I have no intention of following the original. But if I use this debt, I might be able to lock her down.
The way I'd thought while reading the novel—to snatch her first, I'd need to become her friend, invest time, then drop a confession. But since an event had conveniently occurred, I planned to use it.
Rather than a simple debtor, if I constrain her actions under the purpose of repaying the debt, that would be ideal.
Karen also served me as a maid because her family was in debt. She couldn't stray far from my side, and she was easy to monitor. Alice wouldn't be much different. By the midpoint of the original, the male leads would come offering to pay her debt for her—but right now, Alice was nothing.
Time for a low-point investment.
"How do you plan to compensate me?"
"Ah, well, that is… I'm sorry. I don't have any money…"
Watching the two of them talk, Karen began calculating the aftermath. If she couldn't stop Yosef from causing an incident, she at least had to minimize the damage. That was the only survival method Karen had learned over the past few years.
The Hornlight family was an unremarkable baronial house. If the other party were someone from a great family, Karen would have to stop Yosef even if it meant taking the beating herself. But with an ordinary family like the Hornlights, even if he hit her a few times, money could smooth it over. Most nobles in this world were debtors scraping by for cash, after all. There were few problems money couldn't solve.
Young Master's clothes are the latest fashion, made from eastern mountain silk. I'll run up a large debt, then write off part of it as compensation for the beating—that way we'll have leverage if another problem comes up later.
While Karen—Yosef's external-attachment brain—was working hard, an unexpected situation arose.
"So you have nothing you can offer?"
"Yes, I'm sorry…"
"No. There is one thing."
"Huh? What…?"
When Yosef whispered into Alice's ear, her face went bright red.
"W-what?"
While she was flustered, Yosef wrapped an arm around Alice's waist, pulled her close, and started walking.
"Y-Young Master. Just a moment…!"
From Yosef's actions, Karen could easily guess what he'd said.
Even so, that's way too fast! He's already got a woman on his arm—and a noble family's daughter at that!?
Noble families placed extreme importance on a woman's purity because of political marriages. It was to eliminate any chance that the family's heir might carry another bloodline. And right now, Yosef was trying to take a noble young lady to his room.
I have to stop this…
"Will you take her place?"
But Yosef's words snapped Karen back to reality.
"…I'm sorry."
Karen bowed her head in apology. It was an apology for stepping out of line with Yosef, and also an apology for failing to protect the girl being dragged away.
"I-it's fine. It was my fault…"
"…?"
But the girl named Alice showed a reaction Karen couldn't understand. That question remained unresolved until the two of them entered the room.
A few hours later, Karen learned that the thing she'd been worried about hadn't happened. She was relieved that the number of incidents she had to clean up had decreased a little.
"Please take good care of me!"
"Uh, uh… yes?"
But now Karen had to manage not only the Young Master, but also a noble young lady who knew nothing about maid work. Absurdly, Yosef had turned a perfectly good noble young lady who'd enrolled at the academy into a maid.
How am I supposed to handle this?
When two abnormal phenomena her past experience couldn't account for occurred in a row, Karen's mind simply stopped.