The Crown Prince's Fiancée is Way Too Tsundere (1)
After all my scheduled activities for the day had concluded, I headed back to the academy dormitory to unwind and release some of the fatigue.
The academy boasted the banner of equality, yet its living quarters for nobles and commoners remained sharply segregated—a peculiar institution in this strange world.
Once I stepped inside, I found an unexpected guest already waiting for me.
“Oh, Theodore. You’re late!”
“…How did Your Highness the Crown Prince end up here?”
Seint Lionheart, also known by his nickname the Golden Lion, sat in the middle of the room.
After our sparring match, the wounds and marks on his body had vanished completely, as if he had received separate treatment.
“Why, of course I came to chat with you!”
“……”
“From today on, you and I will share the same dormitory and become roommates!”
I couldn’t help but feel a bit bewildered by what Seint was saying.
Even though Grancia Academy claimed to pursue equality and allowed free behavior, the royal Seint would normally be staying in a more heavily guarded, luxurious dormitory room.
“Your Highness the Crown Prince, I do not quite understand what you mean by that.”
I gave a quick nod while looking at him.
The idea of him suddenly bursting into my assigned room just because he wanted to talk—and then living together from now on—felt utterly strange.
Of course, my bodyguard was right there.
As a member of the Baskerville family that protects the empire, I would guard Seint with my life.
But it seemed he had some other motive.
“It’s because I want to hear your advice about your strength and about your fiancé, Isabella Florence!”
Smiling in a way that looked displeased while looking at me, he appeared like an uncle who had just discovered a good deal.
“…Advice and reasons, you say.”
“Yes! I’ve been curious how exactly you overpowered me!”
“I simply put in more effort than others. I swung the sword whenever I wasn’t eating or sleeping.”
I told the truth to the Crown Prince, omitting any bugs or glitches.
After being reincarnated in this world, I had bent my back and worked hard to live up to the expectations of my brothers and father.
Having lost my family in the real world, the Baskerville family had become the most precious thing to me.
“Hmm, tell me more specifically how.”
“…I focus on the direction of my sword swings, how to probe for the opponent’s defensive line, and pay attention to their breathing, gaze, fingertips, and toes.”
Of course, the most important part was the timing to draw the sword with its wind-attribute enchantment, but I kept that hidden.
A slight misstep in timing would prevent the glitch from activating, so a lot of practice was needed to get used to it.
Moreover, thinking back to the time when the world stopped and the god had exploded from me, I judged that revealing the bugs and glitches to anyone but me would be dangerous.
“It doesn’t sound like a lie, but you’re omitting important parts….”
“……”
Seint looked at me with a suspicious gaze.
How could he read me so quickly? Or perhaps he just had an incredible intuition.
“Well, it’s fine! People need a bit of mystery to be fun!”
Seint patted my shoulder lightly while saying so, but I suddenly felt a chill run down my spine.
If he wanted, the powerless noble like me could vanish overnight and no one would know.
“Actually, this is the main point. Theodore, you said a feeling for Isabella had arisen in me.”
Waving his hand as if to say relax, Seint leaned back in his chair with a somewhat serious expression.
This dormitory room was the one assigned to me, yet I couldn’t object to the completely reversed relationship.
“I don’t know what to do about it from now on.”
Seint clasped his hands together and looked troubled.
“Isabella-nim is His Highness the Crown Prince’s fiancée. Isn’t it just a matter of acting normally?”
I replied calmly, as if nothing were unusual.
After all, for someone of the level of a Crown Prince or a viscountess’s daughter, hiding one’s feelings is common to maintain dignity.
The two people receiving everyone’s attention would look odd if they openly did a hot display of affection.
“No, it’s not that! I want to restore our distant relationship…. I treated her terribly when she was young.”
“How exactly did you do that?”
“Even when she acted friendly, I would respond coldly. At the time, I felt no emotion at all.”
“……”
It was exactly the same as the rumors I had heard about Seint Lionheart.
The Crown Prince quickly learned and understood everything, acting as if nothing interested him.
“Honestly, I like to watch love, but I have no idea how to actually do it.”
“But you should know better than I do.”
“I don’t remember properly what Isabella likes or dislikes.”
Seint sighed deeply.
Was the rumor true that he enjoyed watching and helping with love between men and women as a hobby?
When I heard he donated to the orphanage or occasionally went out on secret inspections to learn about the lives of lower-class people, I had thought it was someone else’s story.
“It’s my own fault. I should have paid more attention to my fiancée, Isabella Florence.”
“Please don’t be too discouraged. There’s still plenty of time…, and we won’t meet often at the academy.”
“Theodore, do you have a preference for women?”
“…Excuse me?”
The question Seint had just blurted out was quite shocking.
Asking me if I had a preference for women.
In this world and even in the real world, I had never met a woman.
More precisely, after some incident, I had cut off contact with the real world and locked myself in the house playing games.
“May I ask why you think that?”
“Well, your face is quite symmetrical. Even though the Baskerville family has relatively weak power, your swordsmanship is top-class.”
“…To be honest, I have no hobby of getting close to women.”
“Really? The Saintess follows you around like a puppy, they say.”
Seint said with a grin while looking at me.
Indeed, under the pretext of fixing her body’s invisibility, she had stayed very close to me.
Anyone who didn’t know the reason would think we were in love.
“And I don’t plan to like anyone yet.”
“Really? The Saintess seems to like you quite a bit, they say.”
“No way. It’s unthinkable for an important figure like the symbol of the Holy Kingdom of Valentia to get entangled with a man like me.”
Even facing Seint’s persistent questioning, I shook my head.
Astoria was a crucial figure in the Holy Kingdom, a deputy of the gods who healed and saved the sick and wounded.
If rumors spread that a man from the empire was clinging to her, getting close, or receiving special treatment, war could break out.
Of course, Astoria’s body becoming invisible in exchange for receiving immense divine power according to the gods’ decision was truly pitiful.
“Hmm, you know your own position quite well? That’s not like the blonde girl with strange senses.”
He clicked his tongue, a bit dissatisfied, and brought up Alice.
The female protagonist of the romance fantasy game Royal Child, a commoner girl who seemed to aim for creating a harem by charming the high-ranking people.
I had deliberately encouraged the engagement Isabella to insert herself between me and the Crown Prince to separate Alice from him.
“…Are you referring to the commoner named Alice?”
“Eh, it was definitely that name, right? We haven’t greeted each other yet, though.”
Not greeting each other in society meant they were strangers.
Seint seemed to show no interest in Alice at all.
“Have you heard any other stories?”
“Surprising? Just now you said you weren’t interested in women.”
“Isn’t that the person who almost injured Your Highness the Crown Prince?”
Seeing that Seint had become suspicious due to my changed attitude, I tried to speak vaguely by mixing in the truth.
In reality, Alice had tried to ram a broom at the Crown Prince during the social gathering to hurt him.
“According to the professor Onier, she has a constitution that causes mana to run out of control. Maybe the broom incident happened because of that.”
“As a magician, that’s quite a good talent, isn’t it?”
“That’s only after I’ve honed it myself. A talent I can’t control is close to a curse.”
In the original story line, after the broom incident, would the Crown Prince have noticed Alice’s special constitution and taken an interest?
Mana overflow was a double-edged sword, but if used properly, it was a talent that allowed her to cast large-scale magic alone.
“I’m more interested in you than that. How exactly can you decode and combine rune characters?”
However, the interest and praise Alice should receive was currently all taken by me.
“…It’s a secret. It’s better to finish the conversation we were having earlier.”
“Sure, someday you’ll tell me. By the way, should I give Isabella some roses? What do you think?”
I deliberately shifted the topic of conversation with Seint and helped him regain the heart of his fiancée Isabella.
***
Alice, the female protagonist of Royal Child, a commoner girl possessing all sorts of fraudulent talents.
She was currently stomping her feet angrily in her dormitory room.
“Why did I reincarnate as the heroine of a RoFan world, and why does that weird guy keep getting in my way…!”
Alice had been following the content of the original Royal Child exactly as an event, but the result was completely different.
“I don’t get it. That black-haired guy definitely doesn’t appear at all in the game! As an extra…!”
The reincarnator who had entered Alice’s body believed this world existed only for herself.
***