I Won?
I had always thought my life was a healing genre.
A comfortable and safe enclosure where I could live without worrying about money for nineteen years. Or rather, almost twenty years now…
That said. Even if I didn’t live among the poor, simply witnessing ordinary commoners going about their days made me genuinely grateful to have been born the second son of a count.
If I had been born into the slums or as a commoner, adapting to this world would have been an uphill battle. Humans are adaptable animals, so I would have managed somehow, but a life this comfortable and peaceful would have been almost impossible. That was why I had no choice but to accept the academy.
After all, I knew exactly who had helped me, how I was fed and clothed, and that I had an obligation to enjoy those things as well.
Noble families. Especially those of count rank and above were required to send one of their children to the academy.
It was proof of their loyalty to the empire by enrolling their child in the empire-managed institution. In a good light, it was a hostage; in a bad light, a hostage. That was exactly what it was.
…Anyway. I sighed and complained plenty during the process, but from then on my life became an academy genre. No, I thought it had become one. But…
‘You were the lead.’
That thought flipped completely upside down because of the girl who had just swept past right in front of me. This world was a romance fantasy world. Specifically, an isekai harem romance fantasy.
I could never forget that face. After all, it was the protagonist of the last novel I had read, the only one whose illustration I remembered.
It had been nineteen years, yet I couldn’t forget. ‘Of course I couldn’t.’ It refused to fade. I suspected this transmigration had been someone’s deliberate scheme in the novel.
She—Selena’s face was burned into my memory as clearly as anything could be. Everything had been arranged for this exact moment, I could tell. But nothing changed.
The protagonist, Selena, was unusual even for a romance novel. In most other isekai stories the heroine took the saintess position. Occasionally a heroine who wielded a sword appeared, but those cases were rare.
Why? Because ‘the male leads always handled everything in front of me.’ The men fought; the women healed and cared for them.
From that standpoint Selena was different. She wielded a sword and her talent with it was close to that of a sword god. She never hid behind others. She charged forward, showing off her abilities freely. That was her type.
And because of that she and I would never clash. Why? Because I was entering the administrative department.
As long as I kept my wits and didn’t go crazy and apply to the swordsmanship department, there was no reason for me to get entangled with her. This time… I won. I won. The person who had transmigrated me here… the novelist, I assumed. It would never go the way you wanted.
I wasn’t the heroic type, I wasn’t the selfless type, and I didn’t consider myself the protagonist.
…Ian Killian, are you in the swordsmanship department?
Yes. I had thought exactly that. Well, let me make an excuse. Noble special admits usually went to the administrative department. Of course a few went to swordsmanship or magic, but as I said, those were very few.
Especially since the families that chose those departments were usually the ones deeply involved with magic and sword arts. So I figured I didn’t meet the criteria. After all, the Killian family had no expertise at all in either magic or swords.
So I had only briefly held a sword as a child and knew almost nothing about them, which is why I expected to enter the administrative department.
The problem was I had forgotten that Father wrote the entrance application. Father hadn’t thought that way at all.
For noble special admits the reason they chose the administrative department was simple. It was because they were either unable to help the family or had completely lost in the heir competition and had to serve the empire as civil servants.
In the Killian family my brother and I got along fine, so even if he could have lived a carefree life, other families had to abandon their clans just to survive.
Otherwise they swore loyalty to their brothers and worked for the family’s revival to preserve their lives. Even if they had talent in magic or swords, raising it too high could flip the entire succession if the day came when they became great.
That was why students who entered through noble special admits normally showed no interest whatsoever in swords or magic.
In my case… Father’s trust weighed on me too heavily… Since my brother and I were close, Father probably didn’t worry as much as I thought.
Of course, even so… Why the swordsmanship department…!! Father must not have known this world was a romance novel.
The situation was still terrible. If it had been the magic department I could have growled at the swordsmanship protagonists without getting involved, but I wouldn’t claim that with the same department everything changed.
Half a year of staring at their faces… That meant entanglement. For sure. It meant entanglement. It was the same as having the chaos of events tightening around my neck.
…Did you not apply? No. Oh.
I asked the instructor who had kindly guided me assuming I had applied to the swordsmanship department and got a positive answer.
The instructor, who had seen my slight exclamation, smiled and continued.
It will be possible after half a year.
…What? Who the hell didn’t know that? No matter what you did for half a year, transfer was impossible. Hah. I had heard that story before.
So half a year living with them… I scratched my head while looking at Selena, who was gathering everyone’s attention.
The best I could do was stay out of sight. Luckily, all the main characters in this novel were familiar to me. I could avoid getting entangled with them and at the same time not get dragged into any incidents. At least for half a year.
After all, I had no talent for swords, so being unnoticeable at the swordsmanship department wouldn’t be hard. And then I would apply for transfer and run to the administrative department. That was my plan.
…Would it work?
Life was a series of choices and realizations. Today felt like the day I would engrave that deep in my heart. Today felt longer than usual. Maybe it wasn’t an illusion. So many things had happened and so many more seemed destined to happen.
…What the hell is going on right now? Do any of you know who she is?
It was noisy. The shock around us was almost tangible. The students’ murmurs grew louder, but the instructors and professors staring blankly at us only made things worse. It must have been shocking to them.
But the shock wasn’t limited to them.
Me. Even after looking at her, looking away, and looking again, the girl lying in front of me was unmistakably Selena.
Her golden hair, glittering with dust, and her eyes that would never close were shut tight, but her beauty remained undiminished.
So where exactly was I standing?
The training grounds. Above the training grounds.
What was I doing up there? Whatever it was, I was doing it. I was cursing my father for submitting the entrance application to the swordsmanship department.
At the same time I remembered that I was taking the entrance exam that decided the department while standing above the training grounds.
Because the departments were divided evenly by entrance score, I had assumed I would be dead last and, when I learned the opponent was Selena, that assumption had turned into certainty.
But I hadn’t.
I had won. I had won against that Selena who had been called a finished product since before entering the academy.
Me. How…? I didn’t know either…