I'll Bite You
"Hey, I've got a question."
"Hey? You're speaking casually to your sky-high older sister?"
I sighed and shoved the web novel I'd been reading at Household Mate Number One.
"It's not that—why does Cecilia, who stayed quiet all through first year, suddenly go wild in second year? There were tons of situations where she could've gone wild way earlier..."
"Haa. You really don't know a thing, my little brother. Hard to believe we came from the same womb."
Household Mate Number One tossed me a notebook crammed with the web novel's settings.
"Cecilia's internal mana paths get tangled up with her emotions and go berserk starting in second year. From then on, the heroine and the male leads' relationships accelerate even harder, and the incidents that mesh with all that are..."
"...Oh, this author's got a new work out. I'll just read this..."
"You traitor!!!"
Back then, I had no idea what this kind Cecilia would end up doing. The obsessive tag was no mere decoration.
A dazzling city. Or rather, a place a little too small to really call a city—this was the academy, the main stage of the novel.
I only ever followed the entrance exam route before, so I never knew. It really is city-level.
That was why the academy's shield of plausibility could hold no matter what incidents erupted.
"We welcome all the new students who have enrolled in the academy..."
The voice ringing through the grounds belonged to Principal Arcane. I skipped the entrance ceremony entirely. Find the class written on the notice, receive the dormitory assignment and guidance, and today's schedule would be finished.
"By the way, Miss Cecilia."
"Yes. Vic... ahem... Your Grace."
I tilted my head and stared at her.
"Were you about to call my name...?"
"No."
At her firm refusal I simply nodded.
Well, Cecilia has no reason to play along with my teasing.
Ours was a relationship for the contract and the treatment of her endemic disease, nothing more. Proper distance mattered.
"It's nothing important, but what are your plans for today, Miss Cecilia?"
As a returning student rather than a freshman, she had no real need to come back to the academy today.
"Well. I intend to walk the academy's commercial district. To check whether any new medicines or magic tomes have arrived..."
"Are you going right away?"
"No. I'll stop by the dormitory first."
"Then come with me."
"Pardon?"
Watching the flustered look on her face, I thought it through.
Magic tomes, poisonous herbs—risk factors that could feed a rampage. Eliminate them at once.
Lan, who stuck close to her side, would never have that kind of knowledge.
I, the one who knows the original story, have to stay by Cecilia's side and cut away everything strange.
"Um... Your Grace, there should be a welcome party for the new students today."
"I don't go to those."
"Pardon?"
"Do I really need to?"
It wasn't as if I'd come to the academy to make friends. Imperial noble duty, checking on Cecilia's condition, and getting a look at Elysia and the male leads around her—that was all.
"A welcome party with Miss Cecilia would be better."
"Ah..."
"Um..."
Huh. Does she dislike the idea? Feeling I might have crossed a line, I was about to brush it off with another "just kidding~" when—
"I'll wait."
"Pardon?"
"...I'll wait until you come."
The destructive power of Cecilia smiling faintly as she looked at me was something else.
Crown Prince, is this right?
I found myself doubting the Crown Prince's brain health all over again.
Academy first-year Class B. The gazes of the new students currently seated were, knowingly or not, fixed on the man sitting all the way in the back.
The Grand Duke of the North, Victor Walterheim.
"Do you think this is a zoo?"
Victor's sharp reaction made every eye snap away at once.
"Tsk."
The blonde girl watching the exchange folded the fan that had covered her mouth, rose from her seat, and started toward him.
"Are you well, Grand Duke Walterheim?"
"..."
"Um..."
"Who are you? Do I know you?"
"..."
A hairline crack nearly split her mask, but she forced a smile and spoke.
"Louisilla Pragahegh. The empire's First Princess greets you."
"Ah. Princess."
"..."
"I am in your debt from before."
"What debt...?"
"Come now. Must I say it here?"
Victor grinned and leaned in to whisper quietly against her ear.
"You slipped knights under my brothers while trying to imitate His Highness the Crown Prince, and they all got beheaded, didn't they. This."
"..."
"It's a secret, isn't it?"
Louisilla barely managed to still her trembling hands and nodded.
"There was a misunderstanding about that time..."
"Haa. I don't know what you were thinking approaching me, but the moment you treat me the way you treated my late brothers—"
Unlike the slight lift of his lips, Victor's eyes sank cold and still. Somehow eerie.
"I'll bite you. Me."
Back in her seat, Louisilla recalled the words of her grandfather, Knight Commander Byson Candler.
Since you're in the same class, approach him once and check what kind of fellow he is. If he's useful, make him hostile to Baron.
No, Grandfather. That thing is not a hunting dog you can control by tossing it meat. That is...
A wolf that reigned lofty and alone over the cold snowfields.
There had been an unexpected meeting before the orientation, but I decided not to dwell on it.
Anyway, the other imperial children including Louisilla are set to be shoved aside by Baron, who has perfectly awakened the emperor's qualities.
Through various incidents, and by overcoming adversity with the power of love.
Truly, romance fantasy is...
While I sorted through the thoughts swirling in my head, the orientation ended and it was time to leave.
"Your Grace's luggage has already been delivered to the assigned room."
"A private room, you said?"
"Yes. Those of Your Grace's standing are, after all, given private rooms..."
"Miss Cecilia as well?"
"Normally yes, but."
"Why."
"Well... she has moved to a double room, they say."
"Huh?"
Strange. Originally Cecilia would hole up in a private room until her rampage, lost in magic and alchemy.
Something's gone wrong.
"Is there a reason?"
"Well... the private room was taken by the second-year commoner special admission student, Elysia."
"..."
"There are no more openings left in the second-year private rooms, they say."
"Haa."
So the heroine Elysia, who originally would never have used a private room, had taken Cecilia's.
"You really don't discriminate when it comes to dirty tricks, Your Highness the Crown Prince..."
In the original, seeing Elysia suffer every hardship her status imposed, Crown Prince Baron would step in to fix it—that was the novel's refreshing payoff.
Already spamming the refreshing developments from the very start, Mr. Protagonist.
"Miss Cecilia's reaction."
"...She withdrew without any particular reaction, they say. It was a reassignment recommendation under His Highness the Crown Prince's name. And she was told to her face that he didn't even want to look at his former fiancée..."
"Aigoo, seriously..."
Shattering Cecilia's mental state the moment she arrived— in a certain sense, the man was impressive.
"On top of that."
"What else."
"Um... according to rumor, the young lady's roommate is a young lady of His Highness the Crown Prince's faction..."
"We're going to the dormitory. Now."
"Yes."
This was no time to stand around dazed. If I didn't hurry and shore up Cecilia's mental state—
Dangerou—
"Hello!"
"..."
The pink-haired girl who blocked my path had a face that triggered every protective instinct, like a puppy's.
"Nice to meet you! I'm Elysia! Um... are you Grand Duke Walterheim?"
"...I am, but."
"Ah, I see! I was just passing by and spotted a first-year with really striking black hair, so I came over—and it was the Grand Duke!"
"..."
"Is meeting like this fate?"
Twitch.
In that instant I felt a strange sense of déjà vu from Elysia's words.
That line is definitely the one she uses when conquering the male leads, so why...
Why was she using it on me, an irregular who wasn't even a male lead?
"Hehe. Um, if the Grand Duke is all right with it, with me..."
"Your Grace."
"Uh... uh?"
A voice so sunken it felt as if the air itself had frozen over. And the one that voice called was none other than me.
"I believe the orientation has ended."
"..."
"I was worried because it was getting late, so I came looking."
The young lady wreathed in silver who stepped up to my side, Cecilia Roeyental, turned a sharp gaze on Elysia.
"...What conversation were you having with Miss Elysia?"
Again...
Déjà vu.
I knew this line of Cecilia's too. It was the one she threw when she found second-year Elysia talking with Baron, whom she had planned to go out with. But why now.
That line aimed at me instead of Baron...
"Haha... Hello, Lady Cecilia."
"Yes. Have you been well, Miss Elysia."
"Of course. Um... I know it's all a misunderstanding. That the Lady never did such a thing..."
"I did not."
"Yes. I know. I believe you. It was just an accident caused by a very minor misunderstanding, right?"
"How dare you say such—"
Grit.
"Ah..ah."
Cecilia, who had been glaring at Elysia, looked at me and then stepped straight between us.
"No. Your Grace, so... I didn't do such a thing. Really... really! I... I...!"
That is...
In her shaking purple eyes a deep blue haze was rising. The precursor of a mana rampage.
Leaving it like this was dangerous. I seized Cecilia's shoulders and pushed her firmly behind me. Then I looked into her eyes.
"I believe you."
"Pardon?"
"I am on Miss Cecilia's side. Don't forget. I believe in the people who have entered my fence."
"Your Grace."
"Now calm down and take slow breaths. Ruche."
"Yes. Young lady, this way."
In the eyes that looked at me, the blue haze from moments ago was gone. Thank goodness.
"Whew."
I'll finish this quickly and come back. I entrusted Cecilia to Ruche and stood before Elysia.
"Miss Elysia."
"Ah. Yes! Hehehe."
...You're laughing? Laughing after making this mess? Laughing after obscenely airing someone else's weak points in front of their fiancé?
"What etiquette is it to suddenly approach a stranger with a friendly smile?"
"Pardon?"
"Is that the etiquette of an academy commoner special admission student?"
"Um... well, I only wanted to greet the Grand Duke out of a desire to..."
"On top of that, the party who dragged someone else's engagement to ruin while clouding the essence with talk of misunderstandings is running her mouth freely in front of Miss Cecilia. Was taking the private room by riding His Highness the Crown Prince's power not enough?"
"...That is..."
In Elysia's eyes, which were draining of color, the face of me she saw was literally the furious Grand Duke of the North himself.
For a girl who had spent her academy life surrounded by a Crown Prince and male leads who smiled the moment she stepped into a flower field, this was a type of person she was meeting for the first time.
"One thing. I will warn you. From this day forward, the moment you approach Miss Cecilia—my fiancée—as you please—"
Grit.
I ground my teeth and locked eyes with her.
"I will consider you my enemy and bite you."
Leaving the tearful Elysia collapsing onto the floor behind us, I was about to lead Cecilia away.
"Elysia!!!"
Right then a man whose voice alone made the entire space feel greasy came running toward us—no, more precisely toward Elysia.
"W-what is the meaning of this!!! Grand Duke Walterheim!"
Yes. It was the entrance of the male lead, Crown Prince Baron Pragahegh.