Chapter 106: Academy Romance Manipulation Team (1)
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 106: Academy Romance Manipulation Team (1)
I was speechless at the fact that the Fire Spammer was originally destined to be an Ice Spammer.
Furthermore, she was the official fiancé recognized by the Dale Royal Family.
It wasn't because an Absolute Demon had been reduced to "something that used to be a Demon."
It was just...
"Does this even make sense?"
I thought about it for a moment.
"...Actually, it does."
Recalling the introductions of the RoFan novels I’d read in my past life, the story was surprisingly plausible.
You could see it just by thinking of novels where a RoFan Villainess is the protagonist.
Right from Chapter 1, as soon as it starts, the fiancé—the Crown Prince—doesn't he publicly declare the annulment of their engagement?
And usually, at a party packed with nobles, no less.
Even the Villainess getting dumped is typically the daughter of a Duke, one of the most powerful figures in the country.
To top it all off, the person responsible for the breakup is almost always a commoner or the daughter of a low-ranking Baron. It was all too similar.
"Was that how it was...?"
Realizing this, I asked Boradori, but the answer I got was completely unexpected.
"You didn't know?"
"The character... I mean, Marie, didn't really appear much in the original work."
"...What?"
That was shocking.
I thought she’d at least be a supporting character, but she was just an extra?
"Like I told you before, the only name I remember from that side is Aeryun. Everyone else appeared as special agents or secret agents."
"Our treatment is pretty harsh."
"...Isn't that actually doing it right? It’d be more of a problem if a special agent's name was public knowledge."
"I guess?"
Well, it made sense for a novel to focus on the main characters' narratives.
"Ah. But there was a part that felt somewhat similar."
"What kind of feeling?"
"There was a nuance that Prince Arwen, who was known to have no fiancé, actually had one."
It’s hilarious that the Fire Spammer wasn't the fiancé despite having that much backstory.
Well, they probably couldn't openly announce that they’d passed down the Dale Secret Magic to someone else.
And being a Guardian of Dale was a secret existence that only those in the know, like us, were aware of.
So, even if they couldn't explicitly call her his fiancé...
They must have given that prince bastard a hint.
And yet, if news reached Dale that the prince bastard had his head turned by another woman, it would be normal for them to take action.
"What is it?"
"Ruelle Dale. As for who that is..."
Fortunately, it was a name I knew.
"I know. She's the Princess of Dale."
"How do you know that?!"
Boradori’s shocked reaction was absurd.
Anyone would think I was some moron who couldn't even remember people's names.
"Was I wrong?"
I don't know why she's so surprised.
The reason I call the Magic Spammer a Magic Spammer is because he spams magic.
The reason I call the Fire Spammer a Fire Spammer is the same.
But the Princess of Dale, Ruelle Dale, is different.
In a country that spams magic without a hint of romance, she was someone who pursued romance.
How could I not remember her name?
"So. What's the gist of it?"
"It felt like the author changed direction because the reaction wasn't great, but when Ruelle Dale first entered the Academy..."
Recalling the original work from her past life, Boradori began to squeeze out every bit of information she had about Ruelle.
Rewinding time a bit, to the beginning of the Academy semester.
"Hmm."
Ruelle—the person the reincarnated duo would later focus on, the Princess of Dale (the kingdom synonymous with magic), and the younger sister of Arwen Dale (one of the initial RoFan male leads)—stared intently at the Flower Arrangement Club with wide eyes.
"As I thought... something is strange over there."
At first, she started this to keep an eye on her idiot brother who had abandoned Marie, and Saintess Daisy, the woman he was supposedly infatuated with.
But the more she observed, the more she realized something was off.
"...Is this a place of exile?"
First of all, the status of the Flower Arrangement Club members was bizarre.
The second-years went without saying, and while the first-years were from countries that were mediocre compared to the Empire, Dale, or Leon, they were still princes and princesses of their respective nations.
In any other club, they were individuals people would have to walk on eggshells around, even in the Imperial Academy which claimed "equality" among students.
That’s why Ruelle initially suspected the Flower Arrangement Club was a sort of exile where royals went by mutual agreement for the sake of other students.
Although Academy regulations didn't strictly forbid them from joining other clubs, statistically, most of them ended up in the Flower Arrangement Club!
However, the more she watched, the more she realized she was mistaken.
These bastards... they were all full of ulterior motives.
Not just her idiot brother, but the other royals and princesses too!
Funny enough, the only people in the Flower Arrangement Club without ulterior motives were Saintess Daisy, whom she’d thought was a vixen, and the person named Violet, who was said to be her childhood friend.
Aside from them, everyone else was just trying to perform alchemy with plants instead of arranging flowers.
Seeing the Saintess agonizing over this, Ruelle felt her resentment toward her gradually fading.
"Even if she teaches them, no one's actually looking..."
The men were looking at Daisy, not the flowers.
The women were looking at those men, then looking at Daisy with eyes full of jealousy.
And the only one actually following her flower arrangement, Violet... well, she seemed to be working hard, so Ruelle decided to let it slide.
Had Daisy realized this too?
Realizing it was a lost cause, Daisy took the Flower Arrangement Club out for volunteer work and beat the living daylights out of the famous villain, Liberator Belex.
"......?"
Watching from afar, Ruelle decided to change her plan.
If necessary, she had planned to use force—albeit a bit aggressively—to separate Daisy from her brother.
"Okay. I've got the picture."
I can't win.
She didn't even need a mage's cold judgment.
Even a fool could tell just by looking at the scene before them.
Not to mention Daisy the Saintess, the skill of the second-year Flower Arrangement Club members was insane.
Especially her damn brother; his skills seemed to have doubled since he was in the kingdom.
"The Imperial Academy is at that level?"
She thought Dale's magic was the best in the world, but her brother's skill had reached a point where she couldn't even see his limit.
Was that all? Even the Saintess's childhood friend, who assisted her brother and had only been massacring flowers in the club, was more skilled than her.
The only silver lining was that the first-year freshmen hadn't shown any particular feats...
But that was only because their opponent was a big shot like Belex; they weren't at a level where they’d be called weak anywhere else.
"......"
But what became scarier as time passed wasn't the combat power to fight Belex.
"H-How long are they going to keep hitting him?"
On the surface, it looked like a one-sided battle.
But the closer she looked, the more she could see that the Flower Arrangement Club was desperate.
The moment that offensive stopped, the moment Belex landed even a single proper blow, the tide of battle would turn.
To prevent that, they were desperately hounding Belex.
The problem was that this had been going on not for five or ten minutes, but for hours.
...In fact, it was nearing two or three hours, not just one.
"This is the Empire?"
She didn't mean it in a good way.
No, it was closer to a curse.
She’d heard stories, but even if it wasn't the heart of the Empire's pride, the Academy, a great villain like Belex had invaded the nearby Academy Cathedral, and still, no one had come!
"......Wait, is that right?"
Realizing this, Ruelle looked around and spotted people standing by in the vicinity.
It seemed they were waiting because intervening might disrupt that perfect coordination.
So they weren't just sitting on their hands.
Once she realized that, she could see even more.
The Imperial Prince, who had stepped away alone, was intercepting and recruiting passing students.
Even though he was making them fight a clearly dangerous entity like Liberator Belex, not a single person refused or resisted.
No, they went to fight Belex with joy, as if it were an honorable task.
She’d wondered how they could hold out like that against Belex.
When she snapped out of it, she saw a group of mages, practically a magic corps, gathered behind her brother.
"This is the Empire?"
This time, it wasn't a curse.
She was genuinely impressed in a good way.
If that was the leadership of the Imperial Prince, it was staggering.
And if it wasn't, it meant the Academy students had volunteered themselves, which was surprising in its own right.
She spent a long time marveling as Belex was gradually pushed back.
Then, seeing a professor in a suit and a student suddenly arrive and take her brother away, Ruelle hesitated.
Should she stay and watch the rest of the Belex raid?
Or should she stick to her original purpose and keep an eye on her brother?
"Kuaaaah! Do you think it ends like this?!"
As if to solve Ruelle's dilemma, Belex let out a scream.
It wasn't just a scream from being beaten; his body began to swell up accordingly.
So, Ruelle sat her half-raised bottom back down.
She’d been watching her brother's blunders all this time, and nothing had happened so far.
Surely, nothing would happen now.
The Belex subjugation battle she watched with that thought was well worth it.
And as for her brother's side, as expected, nothing...
"Lady Marie says she's finished now..."
She thought nothing would happen!
"What on earth happened?!"
Her guard, her friend, sometimes like an older sister and sometimes like a younger sister—her Guardian.
Everything came crashing down at Erika's bombshell.
"I don't know. She just keeps saying she's finished, that there's no hope..."
"Those all mean the same thing!"
"She seemed that heavily shocked!"
This was bad.
Marie, the number one candidate for her sister-in-law, was broken.
She couldn't imagine what could have happened to break such a cool and intelligent person.
But one thing was certain: a crisis had struck her brother's romance.
"That damn brother of mine!"
And so, her title for him evolved from "idiot" to "bastard."
It couldn't be helped.
In fact, Ruelle thought her brother bastard should be grateful she still considered him a human being.
"Do you know how much she suffered?!"
Hellfire, one of the seven Secret Magics passed down through the Dale Royal Family.
Being a Secret Magic, it was said to be something one "acquires" rather than learns.
But Secret Magics, including Hellfire, don't just end with acquisition.
Once ignited, it is a fire that never goes out until the target is completely dead.
It is extremely difficult to handle, and a very dangerous ability that could swallow the user if they make a mistake.
A fire that cannot be extinguished by one's own will until it is mastered to the extreme.
That is why, until one masters Hellfire to the limit, they are assigned a Guardian who has learned the Glacier of Eternity—the only thing that can control Hellfire.
That’s right.
Marie Ekid.
Her family had raised the Guardians of Dale for generations, mastering ice magic.
And because Marie showed remarkable talent even among them, she was chosen as the Guardian to protect Arwen!
"She gave up everything she’d learned just because of that bastard's whim, and he...!"
"It hasn't been confirmed that it's Lord Arwen's fault yet, Princess."
"His very existence is a fault!"
"......"
Since agreeing or disagreeing would both be an insult to the royalty, Erika kept her mouth shut.
Even after fuming for a long time, she couldn't overcome her anger.
The next day, Ruelle stepped out into the Academy with a face full of spite.
"Would you like to help with the Fire Spammer's romance?"
A madman had approached her.
"I don't ask for much. So, when meeting people for the first time, please, use the name Marie."
And he brought a pair with him.