Come What May
Come what may.
Even back in my school days, I had always cut it close heading to class.
Becoming Reina hadn’t changed that one bit.
Creak.
Just as I opened the dormitory door and was about to set off for school—
“Hi, Reina. You’re a little late today.”
I ran straight into Ceryll standing right outside my door.
“Shouldn’t you already be at school?”
“Hm?”
Ceryll tilted her head as if she had no idea what I was talking about.
No, you.
In the original story you always showed up early.
“You prefer arriving at the classroom with time to spare, don’t you?”
“Huh? How do you know that?”
Ceryll’s eyes went wide.
Ah, right.
We’d only just enrolled. It was weird for me to know something like that already.
“…You just seemed like that kind of person.”
I brushed it off as casually as I could.
“I see. So aside from being diligent, how else do I look to you?”
“What?”
“I got curious about how Reina sees me.”
Ceryll leaned her upper body toward me, blue eyes sparkling with anticipation.
She clearly wanted to hear some praise.
“Nothing else.”
Even if I knew, I had no intention of saying it.
Getting closer would only make things complicated.
“Don’t be like that.”
But Ceryll showed no sign of giving up.
I had left my room with barely any time to spare. If I didn’t head out soon, I might actually be late.
“We need to get to school.”
“I’m not moving until you answer.”
…No choice, then.
I would have to stick to objective facts that had nothing to do with my original-story knowledge.
“You’re pretty.”
With blonde hair that fell to her chest and those blue eyes, Ceryll was beautiful enough to remind me of a Western doll.
The novel had just called her pretty and moved on, but looking at her again, she really was a genuine beauty.
“…….”
“Ceryll?”
I tilted my head.
She had her mouth open but wasn’t saying a word.
“Hmm~. So in Reina’s eyes, I look pretty.”
Ceryll smiled as if she were genuinely happy.
A faint flush colored her cheeks; she almost seemed a little embarrassed.
“…I was just stating an objective fact.”
“Reina’s really, really cute too.”
Cute, huh.
…It was a compliment, but it didn’t make me particularly happy.
I’d rather be called cool.
Well, now that I had become Reina, hearing something like that seemed pretty unlikely.
Every novel has its hurdles.
Especially this one, which ended with the protagonist defeating the final boss.
In other words, the protagonist had to grow stronger step by step.
And for that, enemies were necessary.
I already knew who that enemy was.
Zen.
A tall guy over two meters.
Zen was full of inferiority complexes.
On top of that, his personality was pretty arrogant, so not many people actually liked him.
Of course, Zen’s backstory didn’t matter one bit.
What mattered was that Zen and the protagonist had to clash.
The protagonist has to beat Zen and get the rewards.
As mental compensation for the bullying, the protagonist would receive money and items.
He would then use those to overcome the next hurdle.
In short, if he couldn’t squeeze anything out of Zen, the entire early-episode progression would get twisted.
That would be a problem.
For the sake of my own peaceful future, the protagonist had to get stronger.
And he had to defeat the enemies that appeared one after another.
In the end, I needed to drive a wedge between the two of them.
“What should I do…?”
While I was fretting, Ceryll spoke up as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
“Reina, is something wrong?”
Normally I wouldn’t have answered, but since I was stuck, I decided to take the help.
“How do you make two people’s relationship turn sour?”
“Hm?”
Ceryll looked at me like she couldn’t understand why I was worrying about something like that.
Well, I probably would have reacted the same way.
“Reina, whose relationship do you want to ruin?”
“Well…”
“It’s not mine, is it?”
She asked playfully, but a hint of unease lingered in her expression.
“It’s not about me.”
“Ah, then it must be about your childhood friend.”
“…Yeah.”
“Hmm.”
Ceryll looked like she was in a bad mood.
I was about to ask why when—
“Why do you keep caring about a guy like that?”
That voice reached my ears.
I must have misheard.
There was no way Ceryll would say something like that.
Yeah. My ears must have been playing tricks on me.
“…Anyway, what should I do to make their relationship go bad?”
“Can’t you just declare you’re cutting ties?”
No.
If that were possible, I wouldn’t be stuck like this.
Whether she misread my worry or not, Ceryll placed a hand on my head.
“Don’t worry. You’ve got me, right? I’ll always stay by Reina’s side.”
I don’t need that either…
“…Ceryll, what I want is for those two’s relationship to go bad.”
I jerked my chin toward the protagonist and Zen, who were chatting away beside him.
“That seems pretty hard.”
At Ceryll’s words, I let out a sigh.
Even from a distance, the two of them looked ridiculously close.
I didn’t know the details, but they had hit it off so well they were already complete best friends.
And from the snatches of conversation I overheard—
Why did the protagonist copy Zen’s ability?
Something completely absurd seemed to have happened.
I’ll skip how the copying worked.
No—I know nothing. I have to know nothing.
Anyway, now that things had gone this far, splitting them up was impossible.
“I’m just going to stop caring…”
I said that and slumped face-down onto my desk.
“Yeah. I don’t think Reina needs to worry about it.”
Ceryll kept stroking my hair as she spoke.
“Reina, let’s have lunch together today?”
“…No.”
“And let’s walk home together too.”
“…Also no.”
“You always say no, but you end up doing everything anyway. Reina’s such a contrary little frog.”
Ceryll said it with a laugh.
No, you’re the one who just clings to me on your own.
In fact, because of that behavior, everyone around us already treated Ceryll and me as full-fledged friends.
Ceryll’s friend.
Gaining that position meant people who used to look down on me and pick fights had disappeared.
Ah, though there were still the occasional ones who showed jealousy.
“Getting that close to Lady Ceryll…!”
It was none other than the slap girl.
She’d been threatened by Ceryll from day one, so I had no idea why she liked her so much.
Was getting smacked her kink or something?
Anyway, today as well I ended up eating lunch with Ceryll and walking home with her as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
We’d even come to school together, for that matter.
Even to my own eyes, Ceryll and I looked like friends.
…No. Ceryll and I are not friends.
This is pure coincidence.
I told myself that firmly.
The episode where the protagonist fought Zen had vanished completely.
Aside from that, everything was peaceful with no problems at all.
Just the same loop of attending classes and training.
“You’ll pair up in twos and enter a low-rank dungeon.”
At Anin’s words, the students reacted loudly.
“A dungeon! We’re finally going into a dungeon!”
Most of them looked extremely excited.
Of course, there were those who hated the idea too.
“I-Isn’t that dangerous?”
“There’s no chance of losing your life in a low-rank dungeon. Besides, you’ll each be provided with a magically enchanted brooch. If things get dangerous, it’ll eject you straight out of the dungeon, so don’t worry.”
The handful of anxious students let out sighs of relief.
As for me—
So the dungeon event is starting.
I felt complicated.
The protagonist always got tangled up in incidents—that was the law of novels.
True to form, the moment he entered the dungeon he would experience a dungeon break.
The enchanted brooches wouldn’t work, and even a boss monster would appear, putting him in an extremely dangerous situation.
Of course, where there was hardship, there was also reward.
The protagonist would clear the dungeon safely and obtain a sacred relic.
As befitting the weapon the protagonist used, it was an absolute cheat item.
It would play a huge role even in the later stages.
The problem is that the sacred relic is a bow.
In the original, the protagonist copied Reina’s talent and used a bow as his main weapon.
So of course the reward that dropped had to be a bow.
But what about the current protagonist?
“All right. I’ll clear the dungeon safely with my bat.”
The current protagonist’s main weapon was a bat.
Zen had the power to rapidly forge and summon weapons.
Thanks to the copy, the protagonist could do the exact same thing.
But it was only the summoning.
He still had to learn how to handle the weapons himself.
As a commoner, there was no way the protagonist had properly learned swordsmanship or anything similar.
Archery had originally belonged to Reina, so it had transferred over, but that was gone now, so it was meaningless.
I had thought that since he had experience shooting before it might still be okay, but—
…His skill had been truly hopeless.
His form was a mess, and he had zero talent for hitting targets.
It felt like I had seen firsthand what happened when the talent correction was removed.
In the end, as a commoner, that bat was the only weapon the protagonist could choose.
In other words, even if the protagonist claimed the sacred bow, it would be useless—that was the problem.
“Hmm…”
I sank into thought for a moment.
If the protagonist taking the sacred relic would be pointless anyway, wouldn’t it be better for someone who actually used a bow to have it?
And the only person here who used a bow was me.
Since the plot was already derailed, maybe I should just snatch it myself?