The Extra in a Romance Fantasy
The family head's study was a portrait of restrained elegance.
There, Ares Everhart — pillar and master of the house — received a knight's report.
"So knights were wounded at the estate…"
"Yes… because Young Master went on a rampage."
It was about his son.
"Seems the knights' training has been lacking of late."
The knight bowed his head in silence.
Rustle—
The family head flipped lightly through a stack of documents and said nothing for a long while.
In the quiet room, the only sound was paper turning.
The knight stood motionless, waiting for his lord's command.
Then the family head, gazing down at the papers with indifferent eyes, suddenly spoke.
"What of the damage?"
"Sixteen knights are seriously injured."
"Lower-ranked knights?"
"…No, my lord. All of them were from the Ironblood Knights."
A pause.
The pen that had been moving without rest stopped cold.
Tap. Tap.
Lightly striking the desk with his pen, the family head sank into thought.
"Sirius defeated the Ironblood Knights…"
The Everharts raised countless knights. As a house famed for the sword, the caliber of those they produced was high. And among them, the order that gathered only the most exceptional talents was the Ironblood Knights.
The family's absolute elite.
Its sharpest blade.
And those men had fallen to Sirius — the one everyone had pointed at as the family's failure.
The family head looked at the knight before him with the same indifferent eyes.
"Who brought the situation under control?"
"In the end, the Knight Commander intervened and subdued him, but…"
The knight could not bring himself to add the final words — that the Commander himself had been grievously wounded.
To admit, before the family head, that the commander of the Ironblood Knights had nearly lost to Sirius, the so-called frail young master, the hollow gourd — that was a story far too difficult to speak aloud.
"How did he end up rampaging in the first place?"
"Knights who heard the disturbance inside the manor rushed to the scene. It seems a clash broke out while they were trying to stop a fight between the young masters. Young Master Sirius was the first to draw his sword, so the knights moved to restrain him according to protocol, but… the result…"
The knight let the sentence trail off.
"And… Young Master Azehar was killed. His throat was cut by Young Master Sirius's blade."
"Is that so. Killed by his younger brother."
The family head spoke of his own son's death as if discussing the weather.
"Foolish."
It was far too cold a word to come from a father's mouth.
"For now we have placed Young Master Sirius in the underground prison. How shall we proceed?"
"Leave him there."
The family head frowned, as if displeased that his eldest son had been murdered by the younger brother he had always ignored.
But even that lasted only a moment. His gaze returned to the documents, as though he could not spare another second on such a trivial matter.
Faced with that indifference, the knight stupidly pressed the point.
"Pardon? Should you not be handing down a punishment…?"
"I believe I already spoke."
Tap. Tap.
He struck the desk twice with his pen, then fixed the knight with a chill stare.
"Do not make me open my mouth a second time."
"…Understood."
The knight bowed and stepped back.
"Then, if I may take my leave…"
He had reported everything that needed reporting. So he stood at the door, about to step outside —
when the family head spoke in a low voice.
"Investigate Sirius."
Tap. Tap.
The pen struck the desk at even intervals, ringing out with a regularity like the hands of a clock — precise, flawless, allowing not a single error.
Anyone who watched it would know exactly what kind of man the head of the Everharts was.
"If the power that boy displayed was not something he has been hiding all along, but something borrowed from the heretics…"
To him, familial affection was as useless as a stone lying by the roadside.
That was why the fact of his son's death held no interest for him.
And if that death had been a stupid accident born of carelessness, all the more so.
"Guide him down the path of honor."
"As you command."
In a noble house, the so-called "path of honor" never meant a celebrated career. It meant cutting out the rot without a trace — for the family's peace, before its immaculate name could be stained.
Understanding perfectly, the knight bowed with crisp formality and left the room.
The family head turned his eyes back to the papers.
But his mind was turning over other possibilities.
Sirius…
The blemish on the Everhart name.
Had Sirius truly reached for a power that should never be touched?
Or had he simply been hiding his strength all this time?
Will you disappoint me this time as well?
Ares Everhart, head of the house, wore a face that said it made no difference either way.
A dark underground dungeon.
That was where I was locked up.
"So this is real?"
I clenched and unclenched my fist, then ran my hands over my whole body.
The sensations were unmistakable. This was no mere delusion or dream of mine. This was genuine reality.
And if that was true, the first thought that hit me was this:
I transmigrated into a romance fantasy?!
I screamed the words in my mind.
If I had to classify the scream, it was one of pure joy.
From the looks of it I haven't even graduated from the Academy yet — which means the original story hasn't even started!
A strange feeling settled over me.
I knew the protagonists of this world.
And I knew the horrific futures waiting for them.
All three heroines would be betrayed by the people they held dear. The ones they had tried so hard to protect had never seen them as anything more than convenient tools.
If I stood by and let things run their course, they would meet the bad endings I had watched unfold.
I ground my teeth.
Just remembering those endings made my jaw lock.
To change the future, I had to move.
First priority: get out of here.
I had already killed Azehar — the one who had starred in the bad ending of I'd Rather Be a Medieval Conglomerate Than Get Married.
I had taken his head with my own hands. A radical method, born of the belief that this world was only a dream.
But the ones I still needed to tear down were piled high as mountains. If I carved through them one by one with a sword, I would end up on a wanted poster long before I reached my goal.
I could already see the flashy nickname The Continent's Worst Criminal plastered in front of my name.
Yeah, that's not happening.
If I fell into the life of a fugitive criminal, the family head would decide I had dragged the Everhart name through the mud and send assassins and knights to hunt me down.
Fortunately, there were more than enough ways to clean out the garbage without turning myself into a criminal.
I knew the future.
I was also a member of the Empire's foremost ducal house.
The methods available to me were endless.
"Ugh…"
I had gotten so excited that I moved too roughly.
Come to think of it, I might even be able to put that old bastard to use.
Massaging my stiff shoulder, I replayed how I had ended up here.
I had been muttering "You're next" and swinging my sword to kill Evancal when knights, drawn by the commotion, burst in and got in my way.
Back then I still hadn't realized this world was real, so I had cut the knights down out of sheer fascination — wondering what kind of dream could feel this vivid. True to a peaceful age, their swordsmanship had been sloppy.
But they kept pouring in without end, and just as I was starting to tire of their enthusiasm while teaching each of them the gap in our levels —
a burly old man who introduced himself as the Knight Commander appeared and challenged me to a duel.
I was not so rotten a Confucian boy as to swing a sword at an old man with few days left to live, so I declined politely. But of course, a knight who had eaten nothing but steel his entire life would not take no for an answer; he forced the fight on me anyway.
And that was where the problem lay.
That old man was, well… a little too strong.
Lacking the power of my prime, I had been hauled down here into the underground prison without much resistance.
And somewhere in that process, I had finally understood that this world was real.
Anyway — first things first. Get out.
I pushed myself up and approached the iron bars.
I looked left and right.
For some reason, the jailer who should have been standing watch was nowhere to be seen.
Because I was a noble, had they not bothered posting a guard?
Whatever the reason, it works in my favor.
I gripped the bars with both hands.
I meant to smash them and walk free.
Rattle, rattle.
True to a house of such renown, they had used excellent steel for the cells that held their prisoners.
The original Sirius would never have been able to budge them with raw strength.
But I was different.
I knew that what mattered most when breaking steel was not the total amount of force.
Creeeeak—
A grotesque screech leaked from the bars as they shuddered and trembled.
A little more and they would give.
My concentration peaked —
and then:
"Whoa! I'm here!!"
Through a gap in the gloomy bars, a head of cotton-candy pink hair popped into view.
"Ehehe! Did I scare you?! I totally scared you, right?"
A smile bright enough to wipe the dungeon gloom away in a single stroke poured toward me.
Faced with that unreal radiance, I let go of the bars on pure reflex and stepped back.
"Sirius! What are you doing in here?"
A pink-haired noble young lady, appearing out of nowhere in a dank underground prison crawling with rats.
I knew exactly who she was.
"Ahaha! Just what kind of mess did you make to get locked up in a place like this?"
A personality as sunny as daylight, and a dazzling beauty that never lost its smile no matter how deep the dark.
It was the face of the heroine who had graced the cover of I'd Rather Be a Medieval Conglomerate Than Get Married, exactly as I remembered her.
"Don't tell me you're being punished for skipping class again? You can't do that! The Academy is coming up soon — what are you going to do?"
Her clear, chattering voice was so out of place that I simply stared at her, not knowing what to say.
"………"
"……Um, Sirius? Could you maybe say something? Anything?"
My first meeting with the original protagonist I had loved so much.
That monumental moment took place in the underground prison of my own house.
I would never forget it.