Extra in a Romance Fantasy (3)
“H-hey… are you mad at me, by any chance?”
When I just kept staring without a word, she must have decided I was in a foul mood.
“I-I guess sneaking in was a bit much after all? Ahaha.”
She looked at me with an awkward face.
I opened my mouth to put her at ease.
Don’t worry, I’m not mad!
But my mouth moved on its own and spat out something disgustingly pretentious.
“I do not mind.”
I froze in pure confusion.
The words that had just left my lips… how to put it. They were soaked in pure swagger. The sort of tone only the thoroughly entitled elite would ever use, people whose entire existence was privilege wrapped in ceremony.
Naturally, it was a register completely foreign to me—someone who had lived at the bottom of the heap both in the modern world and in that dark-fantasy otherworld.
This had to be Sirius’s influence.
All show, no substance.
That was the verdict the family had always handed down on Sirius.
On the surface he was the perfect noble.
Graceful bearing and speech, a vast store of knowledge built through years of relentless effort, even foreign etiquette mastered to the last detail—the living embodiment of aristocracy.
Yet the one thing that mattered most was missing from him.
Talent for the sword or for magic.
The Eberharts were a house that worshipped martial strength. Sword or sorcery, they did not care—so long as you were strong.
Conversely, a weakling received no recognition no matter how impeccable his manners, how complete his mastery of every form of etiquette, how perfectly noble his conduct.
In any other noble house Sirius’s efforts would have been rewarded.
But the Eberharts were different.
In a place like that, Sirius was nothing more than a polished apple with a rotten core.
That was probably why he tried even harder.
I remembered the monologue of his that had stuck with me when I read the novel.
……I am an Eberhart.
Sirius clung obsessively to that lofty, noble bearing.
Those habits seemed to have transferred to me now that I occupied his body.
Anyway, I understood the situation. Time to gather up the spilled water.
“No, what I meant to say was—”
I had just opened my mouth to correct myself when she cut in.
“Really?! You’re not mad—thank goodness!”
Olivia let out a breath of relief and giggled.
She clearly did not care how I spoke.
Now that I think about it, of course she doesn’t.
I was seeing Olivia for the first time, but she had known Sirius for far longer than a day or two.
She was his fiancée, after all.
If I suddenly started spouting frivolous modern slang, she would definitely grow suspicious.
Realizing that made me grateful Sirius’s habits were already carved into this body.
At least no one would interrogate me over my mannerisms.
“Hm? What were you going to say?”
“Nothing.”
I shook my head.
Olivia tilted her head for a moment, then looked at me with a face that said, Well, whatever!
“Ah! Right—so listen! I brought something for you!”
She rummaged through the small bag slung across her back and after a moment pulled out a tiny glass bottle.
Inside, black liquid bubbled upward with rising foam.
I knew exactly what it was. But blurting that out would look strange, so I put on a clueless face and asked her.
“What is that?”
“Ehehe! This, I’ll have you know…!”
She drew out the suspense for a beat, then twisted the cap open.
Pssh—
A crisp hiss of carbonation screamed free.
Olivia thrust the bottle toward me with a radiant face and cried out,
“Cola! The divine beverage that will conquer this world!”
Cola.
A drink no modern person could fail to recognize.
Glass bottle, early prototype. Hasn’t hit commercial shelves yet.
That told me the exact timeline.
About a month until Academy enrollment? Maybe less.
While I was lost in thought—
“S-Sirius?”
She trembled as she held her arm through the iron bars.
“H-hurry and take it, my arm’s going numb…”
“Ah, right.”
I accepted the glass bottle. The black liquid swirled invitingly, bubbles rising cool and lively. It looked delicious.
“Am I supposed to drink it?”
“Yeah! Try it!”
I set the bottle to my lips and drank.
Cola in another world tasted startlingly fresh.
A fierce sweetness that jolted the brain, followed by a subtle acidity that prickled the tongue and the faintly bitter note of cinnamon, all in harmony.
The only regret was that it wasn’t cold.
“Well? Isn’t it amazing?!”
She sparkled at me, demanding my review.
I looked at her for a moment before answering.
Olivia’s face was soaked in expectation.
She was certain I would say something nice.
“Not bad.”
“Right, right?”
But I had no intention of offering empty praise like everyone else.
“However, there are problems.”
“W-what?”
“The glass bottle design is terrible. And the color is pure black—people will hesitate to even touch it.”
“I-I already knew that. It’ll be fixed by the time we sell it.”
“No. That isn’t all.”
I walked her through every flaw, one by one—things a modern person would notice at a glance, and the very issues she would only discover through painful trial and error in the future.
“Whoa…”
When I finished, she simply stared at me blankly for a while.
Apparently she was stunned that I knew more than she did, even though she was the one from the modern world.
The daze lasted only a moment. Then her eyes lit up brighter than before and she asked,
“That’s incredible! How did you figure all that out at once? Are you a genius or something?”
“It’s nothing special.”
I couldn’t exactly say I was from the modern world too, so I brushed it off.
But she refused to let it go.
“No way! This is not nothing special! This is huge!”
She bounced in place, face flushed with excitement.
“I’ve discovered your talent! You have a gift for business! Want to start a company with me? We’ll become conglomerates! I’ll even make you vice president as a special favor!!”
“………”
I simply looked at her.
My lukewarm reaction made her frantic.
“Y-you don’t want to? Then let’s be partners! Fifty-fifty shares! No—fifty-one to forty-nine!”
A short laugh slipped out of me.
Trying to snatch that extra one percent after hearing about it somewhere—it was adorable.
She had been exactly like this throughout the original story.
She knew nothing about actual business. All she had were modern knowledge and ideas.
Anything complicated or hard to understand she dumped on her close aides.
And after the ending, those same people betrayed her, stripped her of everything, and ended her life with savage cruelty.
I would never stand by and watch that happen.
“Fine.”
That was why I intended to take the seat and the role those bastards were supposed to claim.
“But I get the fifty-one.”
“What?! No! Then I won’t be the president!”
I explained calmly.
“The owner of a trading company is not necessarily the person who holds the most shares. You know that as well.”
People often assume the largest shareholder automatically becomes chairman, but in real business the ownership and management are frequently separated.
Olivia, armed with modern knowledge, seemed to understand. She nodded vigorously.
“R-right, of course! I know that perfectly well!”
But this was pure sophistry.
A representative who could be dismissed at any time was not what she actually wanted.
“You can be chairman. In exchange, give me one more percent.”
“Okay! Deal! It’s only one percent—no problem!!”
She agreed with gusto and stuck her thumb up.
But the negotiation was not finished.
“And there is another condition.”
“What, what?”
“We will accept absolutely no help from your family.”
For the first time she looked troubled.
“Then we won’t be able to raise the starting capital…”
“Don’t worry about that. I will handle it.”
“You, Sirius?”
She looked at me with worry in her eyes.
I could tell exactly what she was thinking.
She doesn’t trust me yet, of course.
Olivia probably knew how I was treated in this house.
So her concern was only natural.
But it was not a real problem.
“Trust me.”
“Okay! I will!”
She nodded and smiled at a single sentence from me.
She trusted people far too easily.
“But why refuse any help from my family?”
“I am the majority shareholder. I ought to supply the funds myself, don’t you think?”
“That does make sense!”
She laughed brightly and played along.
“So how much can you gather? Ah! Right now I’ve saved about three hundred gold in allowance—”
I spoke before she could finish.
“Ten thousand gold.”
“T…ten thousand gold?!”
“Yes. That should be enough to run a proper business.”
“T-ten thousand gold… even if I saved my allowance for three hundred years without spending a single coin I still couldn’t gather that much…”
She counted on trembling fingers.
“I wouldn’t blame you for doubting me, but I will have it ready before Academy enrollment—”
She cut me off with a shout.
“I believe you!”
She thrust both arms through the bars and seized my hands tightly.
“We’re partners! So I believe in you!”
Her face shone as brightly as morning sunlight.
Looking at that expression, I forgot what I had been about to say.
“And let’s call each other by nicknames! Siu!”
My name, Sirius, was shortened into the affectionate “Siu.”
“Call me Liv! Come on!”
“…Liv.”
Olivia’s eyes curved into a smile.
“Ehehe. You’re the first person I’ve ever told that nickname to. Well? Isn’t it pretty?”
Liv. I already knew the nickname. Every supporting character in the original had called her that.
But every single person she opened her heart to and helped eventually betrayed her.
The nickname that had been a privilege of the people she cherished had been reduced to a mocking laugh in the mouths of traitors.
“…Liv.”
“Yes! Siu!”
That would never happen again.
The only person allowed to call her by that nickname would be me.
Footsteps.
Just then, footsteps echoed through the underground dungeon.
“I have dismissed the guards, young lady.”
“Ah, yeah. Thanks, Albert.”
The man who appeared was a handsome figure dressed in neat butler’s attire.
Wearing a faint smile, he bowed his head to Olivia.
Albert.
A man I knew all too well.
“Young lady. Do you still trust me? You truly never learn. I cannot tell whether you are simply naïve or actively denying reality. I have watched you for so long, yet I still do not understand.”
“A-Albert… what are you saying…?”
“You are of no further use.”
Olivia’s clever, reliable butler. Yet in the original’s aftermath he revealed that every scrap of loyalty he had ever offered her was a lie, and he became the mastermind who stole everything from her.
That man now stood right in front of me.
“A pleasure to see you, Young Master Sirius.”
He gave me a light nod, then turned back to Olivia.
“Young lady, may I also call you Lady Liv?”
“Huh? D-did you hear that?”
“Yes. Your bright voice carried all the way from the dungeon entrance.”
“I will spare your life. We have shared some history, after all.”
“It is a pity I cannot be the first, but will you grant me the honor of becoming the second to call you by that name?”
“Aww, don’t be embarrassing. Why are you like this?”
“Wait. Leave the dress behind.”
“Of course Albert can! I was going to tell you first anyway!”
“Is that so?”
“As a special mercy I will allow you to keep your undergarments.”
I watched in silence as Albert chatted with Olivia.
A face so handsome it was hard to believe he was a commoner.
A tuxedo pressed to razor sharpness, white gloves without a single speck of dust.
He was the very picture of the perfect butler.
And knowing that flawless perfection was a lie made him more loathsome than anything else in the world.
“Hwahaha! Olivia, you stupid bitch. Those tits are the size of watermelons! Kuhahaha!”
Albert. He was an enemy I had to kill.