Riel Ignis
Alan Ludwig is the son of the knight commander who serves House Ignis.
He is also the same age as Riel, the duke's second daughter, and so from childhood he built a rapport with her by serving as her conversation partner. Well, that said, Riel was so quiet by nature that it was mostly Alan talking and Riel listening.
Alan was always at Riel's side, and that went on for more than a decade. So while it was hard to tell from the outside, Riel relied on him quite a bit, and eventually, in the latter half of the novel, she accepted his feelings and they ended up together.
For a main heroine, the pairing comes rather late — but what can you do? That's just the kind of character she is.
Yeah. I'm pretty sure that's how it went...
I froze all over again at the torrent of abuse that had just come out of Riel's mouth.
What on earth is so great about a guy that awful that everyone loses their minds over him?
Context, content, everything — this was definitely about Alan. Well, I mean... honestly, as someone whose fiancée got stolen, I somewhat agree with "awful guy." But the fact that those words came from Riel, the main heroine and Alan's childhood friend, is...
Did I maybe mishear her?
"He's always trailing after me like some stalker, and every time I try to do anything he shows up and ruins it. It's seriously infuriating."
Nope. Didn't mishear.
Her voice was thick with pent-up resentment, even.
"And he can't take a hint to save his life, you know? I give him every possible look that says get lost, and he just sits there with that greasy smile like he's gotten the wrong idea entirely..."
Wait. Hold on. Just how much has she been bottling up?
The slander against Alan kept going long enough that I was groaning internally.
"Is that how you normally are?"
"Huh?"
Riel, mid-rant about Alan, paused and looked back at me. Her eyes went round, and it was strangely cute.
"You always kept so quiet, so I figured you were just a quiet person by nature."
"Ah..."
Well, saying that's how she seemed day to day is a lie — but she was portrayed as quiet in the original, so thinking she had a quiet personality isn't wrong. The person in front of me is the complete opposite, though.
Riel's face flushed bright red.
"Now that you mention it... you're right?"
She said it as if she hadn't even noticed herself.
"It's just... I have this habit, I guess, of tensing up whenever I'm aware of other people. That might be why."
"Tensing up?"
"It's like my breath gets stuck in my throat? The words won't come out properly, and my whole body just shrinks in on itself."
Ah. I've heard that people with severe social anxiety can get like that. But even so, I don't think it was quite that bad...
"And that symptom gets especially bad around that guy Alan."
"Ah."
"He's already suffocating just by existing, and then he has to drag a whole crowd around with him and never leave me alone. It's the absolute worst, I'm telling you."
"Well... I mean, maybe part of it's on me for not being able to put it into words..."
She added that and looked up at the sky.
No, I think we've already gone well past the point of putting it into words or not. What, does Alan give off some kind of stench that only Riel can smell?
I was thinking that as I looked at her, and she turned back to me and went on.
"But does it make any sense that even when someone blatantly ignores you or glares at you to take a hint, you just keep sticking around with that greasy smile?"
...
I think I have an idea.
In the original, Riel doesn't have a single line of dialogue until the latter half of the novel, except for the incantations she chants to use magic. The protagonist Alan keeps talking to her, keeps paying attention to her. Because he likes her. Because he can't help but care.
"I don't know what delusion he's under, but he goes around saying stuff like, 'Don't worry, I'll always be Riel's knight'... When did I ever appoint him as my knight?"
...That's actually a line Alan said in the original.
When he was chatting away with the other sub-heroines and Riel glared at him in jealousy, that's what he said to comfort her.
Wait a second. She glared?
So that's it, then? The annoying guy (Alan) brought a bunch of loud people (the sub-heroines) over, which pissed her off, so she glared at him to get lost... and in the readers' eyes, that got twisted into the girl who loved him getting jealous because he'd shown up with other girls?
"But isn't it strange? I can talk to you without tensing up at all, Kyou."
"Huh?"
"I had a vague sense of it from the first time I saw you, but after talking with you here, I'm sure of it."
Riel beamed — an extraordinarily bright smile, one never described in the original and one I hadn't seen once since arriving in this world. Meeting it head-on, heat rose to my face before I could stop it, and I ducked my head a little.
"Kyou, I have a favor to ask."
"Wh...what is it?"
Riel Ignis smiled even more brightly as she spoke.
Riel Ignis was born the second daughter of Duke Ignis.
She grew up wanting for nothing, beneath a strict but doting father, a gentle mother, and an older sister who looked after her with great care. She was the type to tense up badly in front of people. Even her family was no exception, so she had no choice but to communicate with them by looking at them, or by expressing herself through her body.
At some point her family grew used to it, and they accepted her as simply a shy child. But Riel loved her family dearly, and they in turn cherished her. And as she became able to communicate somewhat through that love, Riel was living a happy childhood.
Then one day, disaster descended upon her.
Alan Ludwig.
The son of the commander of the knight order that protected the ducal house — a boy striving to become a knight like his father. He was always bright and positive, a boy beloved by everyone around him.
But to Riel, Alan was her natural predator. Just having him in front of her made her breath catch in her throat and her body lock up. It felt as though someone had clamped a hand over her nose and mouth and pinned her limbs so she couldn't move.
"Hi! I'm Alan!"
Seeing him beam and offer a handshake, Riel — with a body that could barely move — slapped his hand away and fled the scene.
The next day, Alan came again. Subjected once more to that nauseating sensation, Riel screamed internally.
"I heard everything from His Grace! You don't have to worry!"
"It's okay! I'll protect you!"
Unable to say a word, Riel could only watch as Alan carried the conversation however he pleased. She wanted to shout at him to stop right now, to get out of her sight — but no voice came out. It felt like a towel had been shoved into her mouth, plugging it shut.
The adults around them just watched with fond expressions. No matter how much she glared or slapped his hand away, Alan treated it as nothing more than Riel's just really shy.
That situation continued for months, and the course of action exhausted Riel settled on was complete, thorough ignoring. Whether Alan came up beside her or said anything at all, she ignored him, and if he tried to put a hand on her — her hand, her shoulder — she struggled to knock it away.
But Alan never gave up. He kept chasing after her. Riel found it frightening. And horrible.
Then one day, Phyllis — her personal maid, two years her senior, who had attended Riel since childhood — saw through the peculiarity in her.
"Might it be, my lady, that you find Young Master Alan... uncomfortable?"
Someone had finally seen through how she felt. Overjoyed, Riel nodded her head vigorously. Phyllis looked at her, then smiled and told her to leave it to her.
From that day on, Phyllis followed Riel around and intercepted Alan whenever he approached. When he came looking for her, Phyllis sent him away with some plausible excuse. And so, for several months, Riel was able to spend her days in peace.
But that peace did not last long.
One day, Phyllis suddenly vanished from the estate, and another maid named Ilia took her place as personal attendant.
Where did Phyllis go?
She wanted to ask — but with the sudden change of maids, Riel could only sit there motionless. And the moment Phyllis disappeared, that guy showed up.
"Long time no see, Riel!"
"......"
Alan, whom she hadn't seen in a while, was still infuriating, and looking at him made her feel sick. Riel ignored him and whipped her head away.
Ignore him. I'll ignore him completely.
Thinking that, she decided to fill her mind with other thoughts.
"Oh, right! That maid who was intimidating you got thrown out of the duke's household!"
Riel's mind snapped into focus.
What did this bastard just say?
That question filled her head to bursting. She looked at Alan with trembling eyes. He was smiling brightly, as if he'd accomplished something.
"I thought it was weird how she kept stopping me from seeing you, so I told my father about it."
Ah.
"She had a bad reputation among the other maids, too, and I figured she was hiding something."
It was you.
Something inside Riel felt like it had snapped.
"You can rest easy now. I'll always be here to protect you."
Seeing Riel's trembling eyes, Alan — under some delusion — came closer as if to embrace her. Riel struck him hard across the face and fled.
Apparently Phyllis's efforts to keep Riel from contact with others had been deemed suspicious. There had, in fact, been cases of personal attendants fostering dependence in their masters. But Riel could say with absolute certainty that Phyllis was nothing of the sort.
A poor reputation among the maids was only to be expected. The truth was, it wasn't just Phyllis — the personal maids of particular individuals were always objects of jealousy among the regular staff. Personal maids were largely exempt from duties outside their charge's vicinity, outranked ordinary maids, and were paid more. Of course the difficulty of the work varied depending on the master, but with a quiet charge like Riel, the workload dropped dramatically.
Apparently, before she was dismissed, Phyllis had confessed to the duke and the rest of the family that Riel found Alan repulsive. But they seemed to have taken her words as mere excuses, and ignored them. Because Alan was beloved by everyone in that household.
Riel came to hate Alan even more.
After she slapped him, Alan no longer approached her quite so aggressively. But he never stopped following her around, and Riel ignored him even more thoroughly than before.
Years passed, and Riel enrolled at Gransen Academy. Leaving the Ignis territory to live in the academy dormitory, she was accompanied by her personal maid, Ilia. And Alan followed right behind.
Declaring he would protect Riel, Alan applied to Gransen Academy and earned admission with high practical exam scores. The thought of that insufferable Alan following her all the way to the academy nearly drew a sigh from her, but Riel held it in. She couldn't even spare a sigh on that bastard anymore.
As if it were only natural, Alan ended up in the same class, and his seat was the one directly in front of hers. Alan, who'd been popular in the Ignis territory, was popular at the academy too, and there were always girls clustered around him. Listening to him chatter noisily with those girls from the seat in front of her, Riel felt a fire boiling up inside her body.
When she turned her head to the side, a boy came into view. A black-haired boy in glasses, a stark contrast to silver-haired Alan.
Kyou Ventus.
The heir of House Ventus, a count's family on the outskirts of the kingdom, if she recalled correctly. And the blue-haired girl talking with him was Liliana Edwin — the third daughter of Baron Edwin.
The way the dark-haired boy looked at the girl with blue hair seemed truly full of affection. The blue-haired girl smiled and answered him in kind. The two of them looked as though they belonged together.
Riel found herself unable to look away from the boy for some time.
Then, one day, two months after enrollment. Still ignoring the ever-noisy Alan, Riel's gaze drifted naturally toward the black-haired boy. He was just leaving the classroom with his sweetheart. Her eyes followed him as he went up the stairs.
The only thing on the floor above is the rooftop, so that's where he must be going.
Thinking that, Riel laid her head down on her desk. Then a few minutes later, as afternoon classes were about to start, she opened her eyes. Looking around, she saw her classmates returning to their seats. But there was no sign of the black-haired boy. His sweetheart was sitting at her desk in the classroom — and yet he alone was nowhere to be seen.
Sensing something odd, Riel stood up and headed for the rooftop. She thought she heard a voice she had no desire to hear calling after her from behind, but she ignored it.