Chapter 235: It Was Winter (3)
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 235: It Was Winter (3)
To be honest, I don’t understand the hearts of women.
I barely understand how other men think, so how am I supposed to know what goes on in a woman’s head?
The most I know is the general mindset of the Leon Knights and the Leon Magic Tower.
In that sense, I suppose I really was the perfect talent for a Magic Swordsman.
And as that very talent, I could say this with absolute confidence:
This was wrong.
No matter how little I knew about women.
Even if the person in question was a fan of Daisy in her past life and still considered her a "fave" now—and even if we had spent over ten years together as childhood friends.
As a person with basic common sense, I could confidently declare:
"Who on earth would like this crap?"
"Wow...!"
"......?"
However, as I watched Daisy accept the gift with a look of pure joy, the common sense of my world crumbled once again.
"You... like it that much?"
"Isn't it cute?"
"......?"
I stared blankly at the doll nestled in her arms.
The doll Boradori had called a "Hidden Piece" was now being hugged tightly by Daisy.
If I had to give it a name... I’d call it the Twisted Twilight Chimera.
It looked like something you’d find rotting in the corner of a dark mage’s laboratory. If such an object were found inside the Academy, it was the kind of item that would justify an immediate arrest for possession of dark magic sacrificial items, even without a warrant.
To a normal person, giving this was worse than giving nothing at all.
The moment you received it, you’d be convinced the other person was trying to pick a fight.
In fact, Boradori—the one who recommended it—had been beaten for it.
But seeing how he refused to back down until the very end, I’d had a nagging suspicion.
To think it was actually true.
I knew main characters sometimes had strange traits attached to them, but this sense of aesthetics was just bizarre.
...Ah.
Is that why the RoFan male leads, who are all objectively handsome, get so much flak? Because her taste is this skewed?
If this was the "probability" the author intended, then I had to hand it to them.
Though, according to Boradori’s assessment, there was no way the author was that deep.
"So, is that the end of the birthday celebrations?"
"Not a chance."
It would have been nice to just move on, but apparently, that wasn't an option.
"I literally draw my own blood every single month to make Holy Water! It’s far too cruel that we’ve spent less than a week dating over the past year!"
"...Does Holy Water actually require blood?"
"Water doesn't just turn into Holy Water through prayer alone. In magical terms, you could say it needs a catalyst."
I didn't know that.
"Does it take a lot?"
"A few drops are enough, but... the, the needle is always so scary!"
I felt a slight pang of guilt, but since it wasn't exactly at the level of a blood drive, my conscience began to evaporate again.
However.
"And! It finally got out!"
"What did?"
"My real birthday! To the other kids! All of them!"
Now, this felt a bit unfair.
"That wasn't exactly my fault..."
"Yes, it was!"
How frustrating.
Apparently, everything that happened was somehow my fault.
"You bought this at the Ilias Merchant Guild, didn't you?"
"You knew?"
"Along with Violet."
"You were tailing me?!"
"I was not! What kind of person do you take me for!"
I wondered if a RoFan heroine was capable of such a thing, but it seemed I was wrong.
"Because you mentioned my birthday there, the information reached Hedrick. And once Hedrick knew, it was passed on to everyone else!"
"...He hasn't given up yet?"
I thought that guy had given up on romance because he was too busy with the merchant guild's affairs.
It seemed he was determined to fail at both work and love.
"No one has, except for Arwen."
"How tragic..."
"I hired you specifically because of that, so don't act like this is someone else's problem!"
"But it is someone else's problem..."
"Urgh!"
Daisy shot me a look full of resentment.
To be fair, it was my fault for speaking carelessly at the Ilias Merchant Guild shop.
"Fine, let's do it."
"Really?"
The RoFan heroine's true, hidden birthday.
I had already steeled myself the moment I learned about this event.
"Initiating Operation Date A Live."
—Confirmed.
Hearing Uncle Aeryun’s voice in my ear, I executed the plan I had prepared even before getting the gift.
"Actually, Daisy apparently has two birthdays."
"No, what kind of bullshit is that..."
"So I might have to go on a date."
"Seriously, what kind of bullshit is that..."
Uncle Aeryun, who had just returned from the expedition, looked like he had aged ten years.
Before, he could at least argue that he was in his thirties, but now, no matter how much he insisted, he looked at least forty.
To claim he was in his twenties with that face...
Uncle Aeryun was truly the most shameless person in this club.
"A date..."
At those words, the Fire Spammer stared blankly into space.
He seemed to be playing out an imaginary date in his head.
Even if the Magic Spammers' intelligence was increasing, I couldn't imagine anyone actually dating the Fire Spammer.
The scary part was that the reason I couldn't imagine it wasn't because of a fixed image, but because of the sheer amount of data I'd accumulated on the Fire Spammer's blunders.
"Anyway. That's the situation. An incident will likely break out."
"You didn't just pick up some random intel somewhere, did you?"
"I'm telling you, a date with Daisy is about to happen. That's as solid as intel gets."
"Fair point."
This is why it’s easier to work with people who know the score.
A typical agent—no, anyone with basic common sense—would have asked what kind of bullshit I was talking about.
But Uncle Aeryun, who looked like he had seen everything the world had to throw at him, grasped the situation with just a few words.
"Right. There's a high probability that the Prince and the rest of the Flower Arrangement Club will be tailing you."
"Since they haven't found out yet, couldn't we just end it quietly without them knowing?"
"Do you really think that'll happen?"
It seemed his faith in this RoFan world was even lower than mine.
"Fine. Honestly, I was curious too. We went through hell for over a month... so, are those dark mage bastards finally exterminated? Or are they still burrowed in a hole somewhere like cockroaches?"
I felt like I had suddenly become cockroach bait, but since the main target was Daisy, I just accepted it.
"Let's see if they show up this time!"
"I'm resting this time. I'll literally die if I keep going like this."
"You're a young man!"
"Ugh, we're the same age, you old geezer..."
And so, the operation of the After-School Dessert Club—excluding Taylor—was set.
Operation Date A Live was ready.
Irene Seya – The World is a Terrifying Place.
It was about this time a year ago.
Irene Seya had received orders from the Iris Royal Family and thought to herself:
'Well, what could possibly happen at the Academy?'
Of course, she had heard that things had happened.
At the start of the Academy year, a top-tier criminal known as the Mage Slayer—Silence—had supposedly broken into the very heart of the Academy.
'But he died.'
That was the end of it.
It was a massive threat, but in the end, the Empire was the victor.
To put it another way, it meant that even someone like Silence had to stake his life just to attack the Imperial Academy.
It was exactly what one would expect from the Elleras Empire, whose status as the strongest on the continent not even Leon or Dale could deny.
Thus, she had entered the Academy with a light heart.
But where did it all go wrong?
"The Flower Arrangement Club?"
"Yeah! There are so many handsome guys there!"
"Uh, well..."
At Princess Meriya’s words, Irene simply nodded.
Even she, a fresh recruit to the Academy, had heard of the Flower Arrangement Club’s reputation (?).
No, she had heard enough to make her ears bleed back in the Iris Kingdom before she even arrived.
'The Crown Prince of the Empire. The Prince of Leon. The Prince of Dale. And a club filled with other key figures of the Empire.'
The President, who had been a commoner, retired last year, and there were two Imperial ladies from lower noble families... though one of them had supposedly awakened as the Saintess.
"There's someone named Senior Daisy, but surely there's a spot for me. It's a club with more men than women anyway. Besides, I'm pretty, aren't I?"
Irene could only nod silently at Princess Meriya’s confident declaration.
Princess Meriya had caused her fair share of trouble back in the Kingdom, but the reason she was so favored by the royal family was that she truly possessed beauty that far surpassed the other royals.
If anyone had heard her, they would have said, 'A Villainess, indeed. Her looks are the real deal.' Irene could only let out a small sigh at the Princess's overflowing confidence.
"If it comes down to it, I can just fight and take what I want! They say she's a Saintess, but she just awakened out of nowhere, right? There's no way I'd lose after receiving a royal education."
"No, that's a bit..."
"Ah, do you believe those rumors? The giant sword that reached the heavens and tore the Holy Kingdom apart? That's just propaganda they made up to deify the Saintess while they were reforming the Holy Kingdom. How could a person create a sword that reaches the sky? Even the Sword Emperor couldn't do that."
"......"
As Princess Meriya laughed and chatted, Irene couldn't help but break into a cold sweat.
'No, that part was actually true...'
The awakening had happened during Silence’s raid.
The Saintess had suddenly awakened, and Silence, who was on the scene, had died.
What did that imply?
Furthermore, since the Holy Kingdom was a place where agents from every nation were stationed, agents from the Iris Kingdom had naturally been present.
'They said it was real.'
As with all rumors, many things had been exaggerated as they spread.
However, the testimony of the royal agents was unanimous on one point: 'A sword so massive it seemed to touch the sky cleaved through the enemies of the Holy Kingdom.'
And she was planning to pick a fight with a monster like that?
Even if Princess Meriya had received top-tier elixirs and education due to royal favoritism—making her as strong as a decent knight—a monster like that was out of her league.
No, even if her specs were high, could Princess Meriya, who had been raised like a greenhouse flower, even handle a real fight?
"The winner, Princess Meriya!"
Six months later, Princess Meriya had proven her strength.
Her skills, which were already decent before the Academy, had blossomed brilliantly.
She had transformed from a greenhouse flower who had never seen a real battle into a wild survivor who could casually chew through weeds to stay alive.
If Irene hadn't known the process, she would have thought a dark mage had kidnapped the Princess and was masquerading as her. The change was that radical.
But Irene knew, because she had followed Princess Meriya and the After-School Dessert Club, experiencing the incidents firsthand.
It was simply... an effort to survive.
If she hadn't grown, she wouldn't be in this world anymore!
—Please save me!
She had even sent a message back to her home country expressing her wish to drop out.
—The Princess refused.
—Why?!
—She said she found true love.
Apparently, the face-obsessed Princess Meriya had found sincere love.
—Who on earth is it?
—There are three of them for now...
—How is that "true love"?!
Irene couldn't understand that love at all, but then again, royalty was a breed that defied understanding.
What could she do? When the higher-ups give an order, you follow it.
Surviving day by day in the wild Academy, Irene had become strong enough to face a dark mage with a light heart.
"It's a demon!"
"Why is that showing up now?!"
The problem was that even for her, enemies she couldn't take lightly kept popping up.
Because of this, Irene had become like a half-enlightened sage who could take most things in stride, but...
"...There's one thing I don't understand, President."
"Which part don't you understand?"
"I get that Senior Adam is going on a date with the Saintess. And I get that the Flower Arrangement Club will probably tail them."
The other first-year students nodded at Irene’s words.
They had been dragged along because the people they served were in the stalking party, but these were first-years who had just participated in the Empire's dark mage mopping-up operation.
Of course, even now, they didn't know why they had to go along.
More specifically, they didn't know why the royalty of other nations had gone there and dragged them along too!
But even that was easier to understand than the current situation.
"But why is it that the 'biggest incident of the year' might happen?"
Why were they being told to prepare themselves more than they did for the dark mage expedition?
Just what kind of thing was a date with the Saintess!
Why did it require this much preparation!
Despite being nearly second-years, the first-years, including Irene, could only tremble in fear at the incomprehensible ways of the world.