The Man Who Shouldn't Be Here (1)

“All incoming students, salute the great Asteria Empire and His Imperial Majesty, Emperor Caius Asteria.”

At the declaration of Edmund Rovenberg, the academy's chancellor, the new students raised their right fists in unison and pressed them to their left breasts.

Let me enroll too, dammit.

Naturally, I hadn't been allowed into their ranks. Instead, I'd been shuffled into the academy's designated Companion Resident Class—a track for people who, for one reason or another, had to live on campus alongside the students: fiancés, family members, attendants, and the like. Which was exactly why the curriculum was what it was.

“No swearing!”

Sigh.

Noble housekeeping arts, etiquette fundamentals—all the qualifications of a proper fiancé. Or else basic education like an introduction to academy studies, or recitals of imperial legal codes.

Just teach me magic like the bottom-tier scrubs, damn it. Why do I have to learn this garbage?

“I heard the people with lower aptitude take classes like basic magic theory and introductory combat studies… could you teach me something like that instead?”

“Ab-absolutely not!”

The instructor jolted in shock, shaking her head violently.

Fair enough. If they forced students into a dangerous class and someone like me—the fiancé of a duke's daughter, no less—got hurt…

It'd be fatal. At worst I'd get shaken down for every coin I own and thrown in prison.

“Now~ let's put those dangerous thoughts away. We're all going to cultivate the refinements of nobility together. Eyes on the lesson, everyone~.”

—“Focus~.” “Focus!!”

“Yeah, sure~. Whatever you say~.”

I mouthed some obedient-sounding nonsense, then craned my head back toward the window.

Carla, Leah, Princess Iris, the faces of the game's main cast—all of them were out there.

Honestly, living by the lake, I'd never really ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠felt whether I'd transmigrated into a fishing simulator or an eroge. Not one of them was anything short of gorgeous. And even now, in the middle of my fiancé-education class…

—Dating an inexperienced noble lady gets boring, doesn't it~? Come to the Backyard Warehouse during lunch...♥

—Tired of nobles who only care about pedigree? Want a taste of a commoner?

—Lord Evan, I know a little magic. I'll teach it to you ‘diligently' during lunch. Care to meet me at the Backyard Warehouse?

※Come alone.

—Adults only.

Pieces of garbage like these kept fluttering down onto my desk.

Hell no. Unless my life's on the line, the Backyard Warehouse is off the itinerary. Most dangerous location on campus, hands down.

“Ahem.”

I coughed, crumpled every note on the desk, and dumped them in the trash—no need to even ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠hunt down the culprits. A collective sigh rose from every female student in the room.

This academy is a wildlife sanctuary, I swear.

Being an eroge, the affair events really were off the charts.

—“It is my sincere wish to congratulate all who have entered Arcadia Imperial Academy. I await the ambitious research and meaningful achievements that lie ahead of you.”

I half-listened from my seat by the window, letting the ceremony drift past, and before I knew it the entrance ceremony had reached its final order of business. The chancellor finished his speech and stepped down from the podium—

—“WAAAAAH!!!”

The roar of hot-blooded new students echoed all the way up to the top floor where us outsider baggage like me were gathered.

“Forty minutes have already passed. We'll take a twenty-minute break, then resume the lesson.”

It's not like a duke's daughter's fiancé would get chewed out for ducking out of a rest period early.

I'd studied plenty for one day. Farewell, Companion Resident Class. Learned absolutely nothing, but thank you kindly, teacher!

I wandered the corridors, peeking through windows into the classrooms mid-lesson.

Magic I'd only ever imagined was going off in every direction, and events and skills I knew well from the game were flitting off the professors' fingertips in bursts of light.

A gathering of young talent, through and through—the hallways were bright, the classrooms were bright, and even the cobwebs tucked into the ceiling corners seemed to glisten with vitality.

With exactly one exception: the graduate students, buried in their research program, shambling around like zombies. Dark circles hanging to their chins, their arms crammed full of documents and grimoires. Set against the students laughing and chattering as they moved between classes, the contrast was almost painful.

Well, they picked that road themselves.

I wonder if there's a professor I could latch onto and squeeze some free magic lessons out of.

I had the early-game events memorized cold, but those belonged to Adrian the protagonist—he could have them. What I wanted was someone I could leech off without disturbing the plot.

“You there, student!”

“…”

“You, th-the student standing there!”

“Hm?”

“Come over here and lend me a hand!”

A professor at the academy can't carry one box, so he's borrowing a student's hands?

The moment I glanced back with that thought, I froze solid.

A middle-aged man, a mountain of documents and grimoires propped up all the way to his chin. Vacant, hollowed-out eyes. Dark circles suggesting he hadn't slept properly in days.

And floating above it all, a name I knew all too well.

Son of a… that's him.

Professor Montel—the final boss of «Lingering Attachment», the first episode of Lilium Crown!

“Student?”

“…”

“Don't just stare at me like that—give me a hand, will you? I feel as though my back might give out.”

It's my sanity about to give out, thanks to you, old man.

I flexed the authority of my S-rank Strength and hauled every last one of Montel's burdens for him.

He'd handed the load over with a doubtful look at first, but by the end he was stacking everything onto me in a single trip, muttering about why bother making multiple trips.

“Hahaha! Incredible—I took you for a student, of course. To think I'd lay eyes on the parachute son-in-law of the famously talkative Ballenstein family himself!”

Nice guy, sure, but he's got a loose mouth.

Look, I know I'm whatever, but I'm the fiancé of one of only three ducal houses in the empire. Is it really okay to say “parachute son-in-law” straight to my face like that?

“Excuse me—”

—“Daddy!”

I'd been about to give him a piece of my mind when, popping out from behind his back, appeared a little imp so violently cute that my lips sealed themselves shut.

I quietly lowered my raised finger and watched Montel talk with his daughter.

“My precious daughter. How can she look so pretty, taking after her mother exactly? Long live the Empire! Long live His Majesty the Emperor! Long live my daughter!! Hahaha!”

—If you abandon Elysia, then I, too, will gladly abandon my humanity. Hail the Demon King..!

For a moment, I saw it superimposed over Montel's face—the image of him weeping in the final chapter.

Unknown as yet to everyone, Elysia was even now sick. In mid-Chapter 1, Elysia collapses. ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠When the cause is revealed to be monsterization, the medical authorities abandon her treatment. In the end, Montel chooses to transfer the demon organs accumulated in his daughter's body into his own flesh—but Elysia, barely eight years old, cannot withstand the shock of the surgery and dies.

—My daughter is not yet dead, Montel. Offer me the Third Princess as a sacrifice, and your daughter may live!

Half-mad from grief, Montel hears the Demon King's voice—a side effect of the monsterization. And when his supposedly dead daughter mumbles “Daddy” and nestles into his arms, Montel goes completely berserk: he abducts the Third Princess to deliver her to the Demon King as a sacrifice.

In the original, Adrian gets abducted in his place during that sequence, and Leah fully awakens—the restrictions on all her skills and traits unlocking at last. Afterward, well, the usual: they subdue Montel, Leah gets her exclusive ecchi scene, and the game generously tosses in a double-fellatio scene to introduce the 3P route. But that's all side content.

What mattered now was that I'd crossed paths with Montel while wandering around, and—

—Ding.

“…”

This godforsaken system message—

It just handed me, flat-out, the answer to treating monsterization—the procedure Professor Montel attempted alone in the original story and failed. The key to resolving the entire Chapter 1 storyline.

If I'd had no idea how to do it, things would've been simpler. But now I knew the guaranteed 100% cure.

Even if these were just characters in a game, the reality of leaving a cheerful, innocent eight-year-old—the very one laughing and chatting in front of me—to die carried a weight utterly unlike reading a few lines of tragic backstory through a game screen.

If I save Elysia, Montel never contracts with the Demon King. Leah's event going down the drain—fine, that ship sailed long ago. But the incident where the prominent second-years witnessed him being defeated and turned their attention to Iris would vanish too. The second-years' support bloc would never waver, and the Second Princess—who should have felt the sting of crisis—would coast through academy life without a scratch.

Which means everything leading up to the “great incident” of Chapter 2 at the inter-year tournament gets wiped out entirely. If that happens, it's genuinely hopeless... so much so that Carla's and Leah's changes would look like trivial losses by comparison.

The moment Elysia lives, the entire walkthrough I know might become worthless. Multiple core plot points I rely on would vanish, and if things went badly, Iris might never take the throne as Empress—and the Demon King could bring the empire down.

“Hmm~? Whatcha thinking about, mister?”

“Elysia, popping up out from under the desk like that gives people a fright~.”

While I'd been lost in those worries, Elysia had slid out from under the desk and snuggled up right in front of me.

“Wanna play hide-and-seek with me? Daddy always hides in the same old spots. Sooo boring~.”

“Haha, does he now?”

But setting all of that aside—if I don't save her.

I'd carry the guilt of turning my back on a child I could have saved, and live out the rest of my life half-mad, just like Montel.

…So what am I supposed to do?