Declaration of Withdrawal
“…Hah.”
Even if the Great Age of Transmigration had truly begun, ending up isekai’d into a novel I’d barely sampled for free—one that had nothing to do with my usual tastes, that I’d only cracked open out of idle curiosity because I had nothing else to read—felt a little excessive.
And of all things, to be dropped into a women’s romance-fantasy Hupijip story?
Worse still, to be stuck as the character destined to suffer that tear-soaked, obsessive, soul-crushing arc… that had to count as a cruel punishment.
I wasn’t sure whether to call it divine luck that I hadn’t genderbent into the heroine, but still.
Anyway.
“…Damn it. I’ve got no choice but to bail.”
First, I took stock of my surroundings.
The room, furnished with elegant antiques, was clearly a private waiting chamber reserved for the four finalists. Which meant that tomorrow, those four would enter cohabitation with the Third Northern Grand Duchess—and the full-blown Hupijip plot would kick into gear.
Time was short.
Once the shared-living period started, escaping would get much harder. I had to settle this today.
I looked in the mirror.
Glossy black hair. A lean but sturdy frame. Somewhat dissolute, world-weary red eyes stared back at me.
Elden Raphelion.
A lecher who loved wine and women, a violent ruffian who picked fights while drunk, a cunning schemer, and a battle maniac who never flinched from blood or pain. In short: a man whose mind and body were exceptional, but who couldn’t control a male’s baser instincts.
Fortunately, he was the sole son of a declining baronial house, and his parents were already gone, so no one would haul him up for some absurd act of desertion. Even if he kicked away the chance to marry the Third Northern Grand Duchess—the woman who could restore the family—and simply went home, there was no reason his personal life would be ruined over it.
In that case, there was nothing left to agonize over.
“I forfeit.”
This world had been created for the heroine—the Northern Grand Duke’s youngest daughter—and everything flowed for her sake alone. Getting entangled would bring nothing good.
More to the point, I had zero desire to bind myself by engagement to a woman I’d never even met, and even less desire to become the live-in son-in-law of the grand ducal house that ruled the northern territories, spending every day gasping for air.
Sure, someone might click their tongue and say, A guy gets a transmigration freebie and instead of using it, he just bolts? But unfortunately, the four regret-route candidates and the still-unrevealed Third Northern Grand Duchess shared a viciously deep, thoroughly poisonous grudge.
For me, escaping this Hupijip wasn’t a choice. It was survival.
Click.
I left the room at once.
Racking the original’s memories, I found the office of the Northern Grand Ducal House’s aide in charge of the engagement tournament.
The aide, who’d been buried in paperwork, closed a file and approached with a genial smile. That smile would freeze in less than thirty seconds.
“What brings you here, Young Master Elden? You wouldn’t happen to be coming with some request regarding tomorrow’s cohabitation, would you? Hahaha.”
Sorry, but I had no intention of starring in a tear-drenched Hupijip for sins I never committed. Getting tangled up with the other three regret-route candidates was equally off the table.
To me—an ordinary modern nobody who’d been dumped into a medieval world without explanation—the stifling etiquette of noble society mattered far less than a wanderer’s free air.
“I hereby declare my withdrawal from the engagement tournament of the Third Northern Grand Duchess.”
And so I announced my escape from the finalist ranks of the Third Northern Grand Duchess’s betrothal contest.