CHAPTER 2     First Romantic Event

“Someone, help! She’s losing consciousness!”

Lean paled as she watched a student go berserk and attack a girl out of nowhere in the auditorium.

Next to her stood the school doctor, Mordred, ready to defend. On his wrist glinted a Sacred Artifact, one of the bands the envoy from the king had just brought in. He was a chosen knight.

“That’s called an Obstruction. It’s my first time seeing one, too, but I’ve heard they’re demons who can possess people.”

Another man stood at her side—Oscar, the crown prince of the nation. A Sacred Artifact was wrapped around his wrist as well. “I’ve also only read about them, but it seems they appear when the Holy Maiden’s power is weakened. According to my reading, one appeared at the last Selection Ceremony, too, and the potential Holy Maidens and the knights subdued it.”

“But who could the potential Holy Maidens be…?” she wondered, glancing around her. Even Lean, who’d been a mere commoner until recently, knew about them. She’d read picture books about the saints who defended the country from the shadows.

And candidates for Holy Maiden were here among the students. But the attack had broken out while the envoy was still in the middle of his explanation. No one knew who the prospective Maidens were yet.

“You’re one of them,” came a bright voice from behind her.

“I’m what?” she cried before they suddenly grasped her hand. An unnatural mark had formed there several days ago, shaped exactly like an oblong snowflake.

The person who’d taken her hand was a boy standing diagonally behind her. Along with his soft, short brown hair, he seemed just like a dog. Judging by where he was standing, he must have been in the same class as her.

“I’m Jade. I’m not sure why, but I think I’ve been chosen as a knight to protect you,” he informed her, holding up his wrist to reveal the glittering silver bracelet on it.

“Um, so, Jade, why do you think I’m a Holy Maiden?” she asked hesitantly.

“You mean you didn’t know? Before the Selection Ceremony for potential Holy Maidens, this floral mark appears on the candidates. And that means I am duty bound to protect you.”

“Holy Maiden…,” Lean repeated, utterly flustered.

Until recently, she’d been an orphan living in an almshouse; then she’d suddenly learned that she was a baron’s illegitimate daughter and so had become nobility. And now she was a candidate for Holy Maiden on top of everything. Flustered was underselling it.

“In that case, we can get right to it. Let’s take down that Obstruction together! Will you lend us your aid?”

“We need you to.”

Mordred and Oscar gazed at her expectantly. In the face of their powerful stares, a sense of duty welled up from deep within Lean’s heart.

“If you’re sure I can help, then…,” she answered, taking a step forward.

And then, miraculously, they completed their very first task.

 

That’s the prologue to the original game, anyway.

“AAAAHHHHH! Why did my past self not take the prologue more seriously?! I should have memorized it! If I had, then this wouldn’t have…” Cecilia moaned, head in her hands, lamenting how she’d stolen the great Lean’s introductory spotlight and even acquired Gilbert’s Sacred Artifact.

Next to her was, of course, Gilbert, an exasperated look on his face. It was lunchtime, and they’d brought sandwiches into their usual greenhouse and were now in the midst of a strategy meeting that was devolving into a pity party.

“It’s in the past now, so there’s no point beating yourself up over it. Also, if you don’t eat fast, you’ll be late for your next class,” Gilbert insisted in an even more measured tone of voice than usual.

Cecilia glared at him through tears. “You don’t understand the gravity of the situation, Gil!”

“And what would that be?”

“I told you, the Selection Ceremony is basically an election for the Holy Maiden candidates. I’ve now gotten one vote from you, which means I’m one step ahead of Lean! If she doesn’t end up getting close to anyone else, I’m going to get picked to be Holy Maiden!”

And if that happened, bandits would attack Cecilia on her way to the church to receive her Holy Maiden baptism—and kill her. Then, bereft of their spiritual leader, Obstructions would overrun the country until it was destroyed.

That very unexpected ending made even Gilbert pull a face. “You’d die and the nation would go under…”

“Why do you look like that?”

“I’m just put off by the idea. You don’t really think something so drastic would happen, do you?”

Up until now, Cecilia had only used vague words like bleak outlook, total destruction, and tragedy to describe her future to Gilbert. She’d never gone into specifics before, which was why he was so alarmed now.

The real mystery was actually why he’d helped her without knowing any of the details.

“So should I not have given it to you?” he ventured.

“No! I’m really grateful you made that snap judgment! If you hadn’t, I might’ve been done for right then and there, to be honest!”

If Gilbert hadn’t given her his Sacred Artifact, Cecil would have developed a reputation for being able to inexplicably exorcise Obstructions. Not only that, but there probably would have been a physical examination, which would have revealed Cecil as Cecilia. Then she would have had no choice but to become a candidate for Holy Maiden, putting her right on track for a route that would result in her inevitable ruin, no matter how hard she tried to reverse it.

So Gilbert’s decision had absolutely been the correct one, and she was endlessly grateful to him for it.

She’d landed in this mess entirely because Hiyono Kanzaki, her past self, had skipped right over the prologue.

“I actually want to ask you, Gil, if you’re sure about giving me your Sacred Artifact. I mean, that was your once-in-a-lifetime opportunity…,” Cecilia mentioned, bemused, as she tilted her head to one side.

Being selected as one of the Holy Maiden’s personal knights was the highest honor in the nation. They ranked higher than other members of nobility, only just below the king himself.

But Gilbert had handed his Artifact over to Cecilia, who had no intention of becoming Holy Maiden, which was tantamount to entirely throwing away those privileges.

“It’s fine. I’m not really interested in power like that anyway… Besides, I wouldn’t have felt like giving it to anyone but you in the first place,” answered Gilbert, his cheeks full of sandwich. For some reason, that shook her a little. From the look on his face, he was clearly trying to hide his embarrassment.

Oh, right—Gil is a little shy around strangers. He only just met Lean, so he might not know how to approach her…

He’d been like this when they’d lived together in the Sylvie manor, too. El, the gardener who’d always brought Cecilia flowers; Hans, the soldier who’d taught them swordsmanship and martial arts; Donny, the butler’s son who’d carefully looked after her—Gilbert had treated them all coldly. He made no attempt to get to know them and rarely looked at them even when he was conversing with them. Furthermore, he very much disliked Cecilia getting close to them, too.

The original game contains similar scenes. At first, this depressed shut-in categorically refuses to open up to Lean. When she takes it upon herself to help him with his studies, since he rarely attends class, she tries out all kinds of methods to get him to soften his heart around her. No matter how many times he rebuffs her, she never gives in, so ultimately, Gilbert relents and allows her kindness to slowly melt the walls around his heart.

 

“I must have loved you from the moment of our very first encounter. I think it was love at first sight. Thank you for pulling me out of that dark room. Thank you for opening up my world.”

 

It was impossible to watch the scene where he reveals that he’s fallen in love with her without crying.

Incidentally, choosing another love interest’s route results in Gilbert’s removal from the entirety of the narrative, probably due to his personality. He disappears as if he never existed to begin with, which his fans bemoaned across social media.

Cecilia gave her brother an encouraging pat on the shoulder. “You should be a little less shy while you’re here at school!”

“Shy? What are you talking about?”

“I mean, you actually want to get to know Lean, don’t you? Love at first sight! I know exactly how it feels to get tongue-tied around the person you like!”

“I don’t understand what you’re saying…,” he replied, confused.

Cecilia beamed at him. “It’s all right—just let your big sister handle this! Although, I don’t want to have anything to do with Lean, so all I can really do is provide backup support. But anytime you need to talk, I’ll give you advice! You can count on me!”

Gilbert said nothing in response. He just closed his eyes and shook his head wearily, the look on his face clearly betraying that Cecilia was a lost cause already.

 

They finished their sandwiches while idly chatting, then left the greenhouse. The area around it really was entirely deserted.

“Hang on—you said there were three candidates for Holy Maiden, including you. Who’s the one besides Lean? You haven’t mentioned her at all, so I’m a little curious,” Gilbert said in a whisper, conscious of their surroundings.

After the tutorial battle, the royal envoy in the auditorium had once again asked all the students about the identities of the potential Holy Maidens.

Prodded by her suitors, Lean had hesitantly raised her hand. But no one else had named themselves.

Ordinarily, that would have been when Cecilia shoots her hand up, but since she certainly wasn’t going to, the female students were sent to undergo physical examinations to check for the presence of a floral mark.

However, none of them possessed the mark, making Lean the Selection Ceremony’s sole candidate.

Some students had been absent that day, and if a girl’s mark had been in a feminine private place, then it would have been as good as invisible. The envoys had convinced themselves that the other candidates had refused to come forward, unwilling to handle the great responsibility of a potential Holy Maiden.

Cecilia frowned, tilting her head to one side in befuddlement. “Hmm. I don’t actually know.”

“What do you mean?”

“By this point in time, the other candidate for Holy Maiden should be dead.”

“Dead?” Gilbert replied, his voice going hysterical.

In the game, there is indeed a potential Holy Maiden with an azalea mark on her skin. But she dies early on in the prologue.

A week before transferring into Vleugel Academy, Lean reads a news article about a murder case. The report says that the murder victim has an azalea mark on her shoulder. At first, Lean doesn’t know how to make heads or tails of that detail, but once she arrives at school and finds out she is a candidate for Holy Maiden, the mark’s significance becomes clear to her. When this fact dawns on the rest of the country, the authorities summon Lean and Cecilia and warn them to be on the lookout for someone targeting potential Holy Maidens.

Later in the game, some crimes occur that seem like the work of the Azalea Holy Maiden’s murderer. They come to be known as the Killer.

“But I haven’t heard anything about that, and I’ve been checking the newspapers. Not a single article on the murder has come out…,” noted Cecilia.

“H-hold on a minute. This feels too much like someone is just waiting for our next move…,” Gilbert stammered, clearly flustered, which puzzled her. “I only just heard that you could die if we keep going with this.”

“Yeah, I did only just tell you,” she admitted.

“And yet, now you’re telling me that someone might be trying to murder you?!”

“What? Should I not have said anything?”

“I’m saying that you’re informing me about this way too late!” Gilbert shouted, angrier than she’d ever seen him before. She blinked at him in shock.

In the game, Cecilia dies in two main ways. The first is via death penalty: She is punished for bullying Lean and/or harming someone.

The second is murder: Someone, possibly the Killer, does her in.

Unlike the death penalty ending, the details of her murder remain unclear, and the case goes unsolved.

The day after an attack on Lean, Cecilia is found stabbed in the chest with a knife, floating dead in a river, or hanged from a tree in a forest. The Killer is the suspect every time, and their motive is presumed to be Cecilia’s candidacy for Holy Maiden.

Lending credence to this theory, an unidentified person who appears to be the Killer nearly assassinates Lean several times. But the main difference between her and Cecilia is that Lean survives the majority of these encounters.

Lean gets killed in a few bad endings, too, but in those instances, it is not the Killer but Cecilia who does the deed. Then she’s decapitated in turn. Basically, if Lean gets murdered, then so does Cecilia.

“Why didn’t you say anything until now?” Gilbert asked.

“I mean, you didn’t ask…”

“This is something you should have brought up regardless! Why do you think I’m helping you?!” he roared in an earsplitting voice, causing Cecilia to cover her ears.

She really hadn’t been trying to hide it. She’d just never had a chance to mention it.

“Well, forget it. It’s not like you hid it on purpose… But in the game or whatever, do you ever find out the Killer’s identity?”

“You do in the true love route, apparently…”

“But?”

“But I actually never got that far…,” she admitted.

Gilbert heaved a sigh of obvious disappointment.

“I—I can’t help it! I think I died before I could get to it!” she cried.

“But we can’t come up with a strategy if we don’t know who they are. What if they’re targeting you?”

“I get that, but I’m not a candidate for Holy Maiden this time, so I don’t think I…”

“You don’t think you need to be all that careful? You’re acting way too naive. Do you know the name of the candidate who gets murdered?”

“That never comes up once in the game…”

Gilbert let out another long sigh.

“That’s something I really, really can’t help!” she protested.

“I know. But does she have any defining characteristics besides her mark?” he asked.

“Uh…,” she answered, sifting through her memories. In the game, the royal envoy displays a photo of the slain girl, but there’s a mosaic overlay like frosted glass over it that makes it difficult to see.

But as she desperately combed through anything she could remember, they exited onto a path filled with students.

Right away, a thrilled voice shrieked loud enough for all to hear. “PRINCE CECIL!”

“Uh-oh…,” she said under her breath, startled by the sudden cry and stumbling over her next step. A wall of female students instantly surrounded her.

The prince of the school now bore the title of renowned knight, which had driven them into a frenzy over their beloved idol. There was no way they were letting him go.

“Where were you? I wanted to have lunch with you…”

“I made you a lunch, Prince Cecil! I couldn’t feed it to you today, but some other time is all right, too!”

“Ladies! You promised you wouldn’t try to get ahead of one another, didn’t you?! If Prince Cecil is going to eat with anyone, it’s going to be with all of us!”

“Um, would you like to have some post-lunch coffee?”

“Not you, too!”

They just kept babbling, leaving Cecilia with a somewhat pained grin on her face. The girls were just like baby chicks whose parents had abruptly appeared bearing food. It was honestly always a pain that they crowded all together every time, but that didn’t mean Cecil could treat them rudely. Cecil had to be the manliest and most gentlemanly of all…

From the topic of lunch, the conversation turned to singing the praises of how dashing Cecil had been in the auditorium earlier, which then sparked discussion on all kinds of other things.

Using a hand to stave off the crowd of girls excitedly attempting conversation, Cecilia pasted a charming, princely smile on her face. Then she reached out and traced a line down the jaw of the girl in front of her. “Don’t twitter so much, little birds. I’d much rather listen to your sweet songs in turn.”

(Translation: Speak one by one; I can’t hear everything.)

At Cecilia’s low-pitched voice, the crowd let out another round of squeals and screams.

From the edge of the throng, Gilbert was eyeing her coldly, predictably enough. “It’s because you act like this that things escalate and get even more annoying to handle.”

“Huh? What was that? Sorry, Gil—I didn’t catch that.”

“Nothing,” muttered Gilbert after a pause, leaving Cecil to his crowd of adoring fans and heading to the classroom alone.

Cecilia was on the run.

From a younger student offering up some snacks.

From a classmate getting stubbornly handsy.

From an older student taking any opportunity to invite Cecil to spend the night with her.

“Ugh, this sucks! I seriously hate this!”

She was always on the run.

 

Two weeks after Cecilia screwed up in the auditorium, her fans’ passion for the prince (?) who’d been selected as a knight had reached a fever pitch. Constantly chased around here and there, she had no time for herself at all. Someone would inevitably pop up next to her wherever she went and whatever she did.

It all came on so suddenly that she hadn’t held another strategy meeting with Gilbert since their earlier one.

At first, Cecilia toughed out her lack of privacy and the need to constantly wear her princely smile. She knew that her fans’ mania was fleeting, so she believed things would go back to how they’d been with the passage of time. But as the days wore on, Cecilia’s tolerance for toughing it out hit its limit, leading to her current predicament of attempting escape.

“Prince Cecil, please wait!”

“I’m in a bit of a hurry now, sorry!” she said, shaking off the female students in hot pursuit and slipping into the courtyard. Worried cries of “Where did he go?” rang out as her pursuers passed right by but were unable to find her as she was camouflaged by the shadows of the thick hedges.

“Alone at last…” She sighed, leaning against a tree trunk. “I need to hook Lean up with someone, but I can never go anywhere in peace.”

Since Cecilia had received a vote from Gilbert, she had to do whatever it took to get Lean and someone else to fall for each other so Lean could collect their Sacred Artifact. Lean and Cecilia were fortunately in the same class, so she’d thought it would be easy to instigate meet-cutes, but no matter how much she wanted to, she couldn’t do a thing for the time being. It would be best to just let nature take its course with Lean’s love life, but at the moment, there were no signs of developments. In fact…

“We need to change classrooms for our next lesson. Do you want to go together, Lord Cecil?”

“Lord Cecil, may I sit next to you?”

“Could you help me figure out this problem, Lord Cecil?”

Lord Cecil, Lord Cecil, Lord Cecil, Lord Cecil…

Why was Lean paying more attention to Cecil instead of her actual suitors? Yes, from her point of view, Cecil was a knight and therefore possibly a suitor, but there wasn’t actually a Cecil route. The man himself didn’t even exist!

I don’t want to be cold to Lean, but I feel like if I don’t, then Cecilia’s life is going to wind up as Cecil’s life…

Which would negate the entire reason she was dressing as a boy.

Well, the first three romantic events happen even if you don’t manage to raise the suitors’ affection points for you, so I guess I can think about it after that…

“Meow!”

“Meow?” she repeated, as a cry from behind interrupted her thoughts. She turned around to find a small cat. It had short legs and a coat that was a mixture of black and tawny brown. With its tottering, still-unsteady steps, the kitten was utterly adorable.

“Oh! You’re so cute! Munchkin breed, maybe? So soft and fluffy!”

“Mrow,” responded the kitten, who was evidently very used to humans, not resisting at all when Cecilia picked it up. She buried her face in its white belly. It smelled like sunlight.

“Oh my, looks like you have a little injury on your foot. Did you cut yourself somewhere? Wait just a second,” Cecilia said, digging through her pocket and pulling out a light pink handkerchief, which she wrapped around the kitten’s bleeding foot. “There we go! I’ll take you by the nurse’s office later. They might have some disinfectant. Oh, but can I put disinfectant for humans on you?”

“Meooow?”

“I’ll ask Dr. Mordred. He’s an intellectual-type character, so he should be able to answer just about any question!”

“Mrow!”

When she nuzzled the kitten’s nose, it rubbed its head against her affectionately. Precious.

Just then, she heard talking from the other side of the hedge she was hiding in. One had a lovely, clear, and beautiful voice, while the other spoke in a deep, intimidating baritone. She recognized both.

Peeking through a gap in the hedges, she observed the speakers.

It was Oscar and Lean, gazing at the rosebushes.

 

Oscar Abel Prosper.

The nation’s crown prince and fiancé to the duke’s daughter, Cecilia Sylvie.

Eyes as sharp as knives flashed from beneath his deep scarlet hair. Despite his handsomeness, his expression gave off a cold impression. Tall and lanky, he exuded a characteristically royal aura.

Oh, yikes. We’ve gotten to this part…

She scrunched herself down so that they wouldn’t find her. This was Lean and Oscar’s very first romantic event.

In this scene, Lean—saddled with the heavy fate of being a potential Holy Maiden and all mixed up over it—encounters the crown prince Oscar in the courtyard.

 

“I know you’ve been saddled with a difficult role, but let’s both do our best. At the very least, I think you’re much more suited for Holy Maiden than Cecilia. I find it very touching how you struggle through hardships instead of avoiding and ignoring them.”

 

That is what Oscar says to encourage Lean, who is feeling entirely out of her depth.

Right, Oscar loves Lean from the moment he sees her. And he hates Cecilia more than anyone…

He views Cecilia as an incompatible fiancée, an archenemy who gets between him and Lean. Despite their engagement, he detests her more than anyone.

Cecilia, on the other hand, adores Oscar, and her jealousy leads her to hurt Lean. This incurs Oscar’s wrath, which gets her imprisoned and then executed.

Actually, this “Cecilia hurts Lean, gets imprisoned, gets executed” plotline isn’t exclusive to Oscar’s route but appears rather often. In almost every route, it is Oscar who sends Cecilia to the gallows.

No matter who Lean ends up with, Oscar still holds feelings for her in his heart. What pure and unconditional love. But that love is also why Oscar abhors Cecilia in every single route.

Oscar is the one person I cannot interact with. Especially during this event…

In the next part of this romantic event, Cecilia butts in.

Things are just looking good between Oscar and Lean when Cecilia pops up from nowhere. Then she slaps Lean out of the blue and shouts at her.

“What do you think you’re doing trying to seduce an engaged man, you shameless trollop?!”

Oscar admonishes Cecilia, saying, “I could not be more disappointed in you,” and leads Lean away with an arm around her shoulders. This incident spurs Cecilia to further hostility against Lean.

Because situations like that one keep cropping up, it leads people to blame and suspect Cecilia of things she doesn’t even do: “It has to be her. That’s the type of person she is.”

Okay! Time to make my escape! she thought. If she stayed here and interrupted this event by some chance, Cecil might end up with the same fate as Cecilia, ruining all her cross-dressing efforts.

From her crouch, she slowly rose to her feet.

But then the cat jumped from her arms.

“Aah!” she cried as the cat used her head as a springboard and leaped over to Lean and Oscar, of all people.

Meanwhile, the recoil from the cat’s jump made Cecilia fall backward.

“Wha—?”

“Eek!”

Laid out flat with her back over the hedge, she tilted her head to sneak an upside-down glance at the couple.

N-now I’ve done it…

The cat burrowed itself in Lean’s arms and let out a happy meow.

“Were you eavesdropping on us?” Oscar said, glaring down at Cecilia coldly. Her whole body was trembling. She’d definitely spoiled the mood as some random man intruding on his tryst with Lean.

Yes, about 80 percent of Oscar’s affection points for Lean rest on this one scene.

If you like her so much, just give her your Sacred Artifact! she couldn’t help thinking. But she had to play by the game’s rules.

“Ah-ha-ha… It seems I’ve dozed off under this tree…,” Cecilia-as-Cecil said, making up a desperate excuse.

“Oh…?” Oscar replied, narrowing his eyes. Naturally, he didn’t believe it. Crap.

“Lord Cecil, are you all right?” asked Lean with an angelic smile as she helped Cecil up.

Ordinarily, Cecilia would be trying to avoid Lean at all costs, but her smile was like the warm sun compared to the subzero frost Oscar exuded next to her.