Assassination Attempt Disguised as Legitimate Spar
I lay sprawled across the staircase floor. It took a long time before I could finally force my body upright. The blood I’d vomited left my vision spinning, but I couldn’t skip the afternoon’s required practical combat class. Missing it would trigger a synchronization penalty strong enough to burst my heart.
“Haa… what a cursed life.”
Dragging my heavy legs, I pushed open the training ground doors. The noisy chatter of students gathering weapons snapped into silence as if sliced by a blade. True to my reputation as the mad dog who had wrecked yesterday’s entrance ceremony, anyone whose eyes met mine quickly looked away and made a path. I walked straight to the center without a care.
“All right, is everyone here!”
Combat Professor Valder leaped onto the platform and bellowed.
“Today’s lesson is one-on-one free sparring! Choose your own opponents. Use the wooden swords provided in the training ground. Begin!”
A sharp whistle pierced the air.
I leaned against the wall and licked my dry lips. To keep up the villain act, I needed to pick some weak commoner and beat him half to death. I was just about to crook a finger at Morgan, who was hovering nervously in the corner, when—
“I will spar with the young duke.”
The calm voice froze my hand in mid-air. Every gaze snapped toward the end of the newly opened path. Seria approached, silver hair neatly tied back, wooden sword in hand.
“She’s challenging the young duke directly?”
The whispers around me were loud, but the noise inside my head was louder. She had been boring holes into the back of my skull all morning. She was clearly planning to use this spar as an excuse to slit my throat.
I wanted her to grow into an excellent hero. Never thought I’d end up as my favorite character’s first hunt target.
Her murderous stare clung to me like tar, as though she would chew me up until even my bones were gone.
“How dare you approach the young duke…!”
One of the retainers beside me stepped forward. But the instant Seria turned that gaze on him, he gasped and crumpled to the floor. It was the kind of look that could flay skin from muscle. She swung her eyes back to me and smiled sweetly.
“Is that not allowed, Young Duke?”
I wanted to bolt right then and there. But—
Trample the heroine who dares to challenge you without knowing her place!
Failure Penalty: Lifespan reduced by 30 days
Fuck. This goddamn system.
I forced strength into my trembling legs and kicked the wooden sword on the floor up into my hand.
“Bugs that don’t know their place deserve a beating. Come at me.”
The moment the words left my mouth, Seria kicked off the ground and shot forward.
Swish—!
Shit, she’s insanely fast!
Her speed was almost impossible to track. As expected of the original story’s main heroine, her movements were far quicker and sharper than I’d imagined. I instinctively pulled up mana. A crushing pain seized my heart, but if I wanted to live, I had to block her.
Yet the wooden sword rushing toward my face wasn’t aimed at any vital point. Instead, she was throwing her defenseless shoulder straight into my empty embrace.
Huh?
In my panic, I twisted the trajectory of my swing at the last second.
Thud—!
My wooden sword slammed brutally into her shoulder. It was a path she could have easily dodged, yet she took the full force of the blow.
“Ugh…”
With a small groan, Seria collapsed against me. I tried to pull away in alarm, but her slender fingers clamped tightly onto my collar.
“What the hell are you—”
Seria leaned in until her lips nearly brushed my ear and whispered softly.
“You can hit me harder. If it’s your hand, it’s fine.”
…What? Did she notice that my instincts to protect my favorite character made me unconsciously pull my strength at the last moment?
“This bug who misunderstood and hated you all this time… I will gladly accept as many strikes as you wish until you forgive me.”
Still clinging to me as if in an embrace, she looked up. Those pitch-black eyes burned with ecstatic heat, untouched by any notion of pain.
Goosebumps raced across my entire body.
Misunderstanding? Forgiveness? Bullshit. No matter how kind the original protagonist is, there’s no way she’d forgive the horrific abuse I put her through overnight.
Offering her shoulder, spouting those ridiculous words—it was all a trap. She was pretending to be completely insane to lower my guard, then planned to strike my heart at this deadly close range.
She really is my favorite character… that venom of hers is no joke! She’s willing to sacrifice her own bones just to take my neck!
My face drained of color as I shoved her away violently.
Thud—!
I roared at the fallen Seria, voice thick with malice.
“Get lost! Get the hell out of my sight right now!!”
The entire training ground fell deathly silent at my outburst.
But Seria, still sitting on the floor, smiled through her tangled silver hair.
“You can’t hear me?!”
I hurled the wooden sword aside and shouted again. The soft sensation of her delicate shoulder still lingered disgustingly in my palm. That terrifying endurance—she hadn’t even flinched when struck. If I had been even a fraction slower, I would have died instantly. Staying in the same space with her any longer meant I wouldn’t survive the night.
“Professor! I’m not feeling well, so I’m leaving. Tell the rest of this trash to spar among themselves.”
I snapped at Professor Valder and stormed out of the training ground without looking back.
Run. Before my blackened favorite character shortens my lifespan any further.
At the same time, inside the now-silent training ground.
“…Cromwell student. You should probably head to the infirmary.”
Professor Valder approached. Her knees were scraped and bleeding, and the shoulder struck by the wooden sword was red and swollen. Yet Seria’s expression showed no trace of pain.
“No. I’m fine.”
She rose to her feet and gently cradled her bruised shoulder. The exact spot where Demian’s wooden sword had landed.
『Get lost! Get the hell out of my sight right now!!』
The face that had shouted those words. But Seria’s eyes weren’t fixed on the arrogant mask he wore—they were locked on his pale lips and sweat-beaded forehead.
The hand that pushed me away… it was burning like fire.
The way he had desperately twisted his attack after she deliberately left an opening. How much strain that recoil must have placed on a body already broken enough to cough up blood. Just imagining it stole her breath.
A man who willingly played the villain and crumbled alone.
Why are you so cruel only to yourself?
Seria picked up the wooden sword Demian had thrown aside. She clasped the still-warm handle with both hands and pulled it to her chest.
“I’ll fix you.”
A strange, intense madness bloomed in her eyes.
“The hell you’ve carried alone—I’ll tear it all apart and pull you out of it.”
An eerie, drugged-looking smile spread across her lips.
“Uweeeek—!”
Clutching the dormitory toilet, I vomited blood for the third time that day. Only after retching until tears and snot streamed down my face could I finally breathe again.
“Haa… fuck, I’m really losing it.”
The face staring back from the mirror looked like a corpse. The recoil from forcing that last-second change in trajectory during the spar had been brutal.
Ding—.
Notification! Main heroine Seria Cromwell’s obsession level has surpassed the critical threshold!
Danger! The heroine is attempting to approach in order to uncover your true condition.
“…What?”
Uncover my true condition? Was she trying to dig out the weakness of my terminal illness from the deadly poison curse? She was definitely planning to torment me in the most painful way possible before killing me. At this rate, it wouldn’t be strange to be assassinated in my sleep.
Remaining Lifespan: 1 year, 1 month, 29 days
Until next main episode — Moonlight Hunt Festival: 7 days
I had to survive the next seven days somehow, avoiding the eyes of my rampaging favorite character.
“Fine. Seven days. I just need to hide away and endure for seven days.”
I clenched my fist, steeling my pathetic survival instinct.
Completely unaware of the quiet, stealthy footsteps approaching my room from outside the door.
In the hallway outside the dormitory VIP room.
Seria stepped silently across the carpet and stopped before Demian’s door. The impenetrable defense magic circle, the supervisors’ patrols—none of it mattered in the face of the Cromwell family’s secret stealth technique, a skill she had honed by carving away at her very bones to survive her fallen house.
She carefully placed her hand on the firmly shut door. No presence could be detected, yet the rough, irregular mana waves beyond it transmitted clearly. Her eyes moved to the doorknob.
Click.
The instant her fingers touched it, the sturdy magic lock released without resistance.
She opened the door a paper-thin crack and peered inside without so much as breathing.
The dark room. Demian’s back as he staggered out from the bathroom. The solid frame that once looked like it wouldn’t bleed even if stabbed was gone. All that remained were shoulders so thin and frail they seemed ready to snap at any moment.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
Her heart pounded violently. She wanted to fling the door wide open and rush in, to wrap her arms around that precarious back—but Seria suppressed the urge. If she forcibly stripped away his shell now, there was no telling what extreme choice that prideful man might make.
“…I’m back.”
Seria inhaled deeply through the gap, filling her lungs with the faint metallic scent of blood mixed with his body odor.
She closed the door again without a sound and relocked it.
Just wait a little longer. Whether it’s the illness devouring you or this damned world itself… I will tear it all to pieces for you.
Madness glittered in Seria’s eyes as she turned away. Her gaze was fixed on the rear mountain where the main event—the Moonlight Hunt Festival—would be held in seven days.
The winner would receive the highest-grade elixir from the academy vault and permission to enter the forbidden book section. If it could save him as he collapsed, coughing blood, she would shove any elixir or treasure she could get her hands on down his throat.
Meanwhile, behind the firmly closed door.
“Achoo—!”
Lying sprawled on the bed, I sniffed at the sudden sneeze. Even with the windows shut, a cold chill lingered in the room.
“Fuck, I’d better take more painkillers and sleep.”
Oblivious to the uninvited guest standing right outside my door, I rummaged through the drawer, desperately trying to cram survival plans into my head—plans to stay hidden from Seria’s eyes during the Moonlight Hunt Festival seven days from now.