Chapter 1: I’m Getting Out Of Here!

“No, no, no, this can’t be happening! I can’t be a villain! No, it’s just a dream... That’s all it is, right? Hahahaha...”

A dry laugh escaped my lips.

Nobody wants to be a villain! Villains don’t get happy endings! And who doesn’t love a good happy ending? Somebody please explain to me why I’m living inside a video game! This world doesn’t even HAVE luxuries like video games! Surely I just have an overactive imagination... right?!

Just then, it occurred to me: in Farzian culture, vivid dreams—those you could remember long after they passed—were believed to be prophetic in nature.

The predominant religious text within Farzia and our neighboring countries was the Scripture of Jeremiah. As with most other religions, its preachings focused predominantly on living a good, honest life. Unlike other religions, however, it hailed dreams as gifts from God, and as such, people treated them much like horoscopes.

In Japan, if you went up to someone and said, “Last night I had this really vivid dream that my crush asked me out! Clearly he has feelings for me too!” then everyone would think you were delusional. But here in this world, if you told one of the monks, they’d pull out their dream interpretation book and start analyzing every detail, piece by piece.

I dug through all the memories of my past life, searching for the smallest possibility that these dreams weren’t prophetic.

“I mean, Game-Kiara could cast magic, but I sure can’t. And I’ve never seen anyone around here cast any either.”

That said, I knew magic did indeed exist in this world. Every now and then, I’d hear about the palace hiring royal spellcasters. But while they were exceptional soldiers on the battlefield, they were also extremely rare. Even Llewyne hadn’t employed any spellcasters in their recent battles.

The path to becoming a spellcaster was a closely guarded secret. Supposedly, the gift of magic passed from a veteran spellcaster to their disciples—but rumor had it that this involved forming a contract with a demon.

Wait, so... if future events play out exactly like they did in the game... does that mean I’m going to have to do that too?!

“But I don’t want to sign a contract with a demon!”

I’d already had a miserable childhood, and now a miserable marriage was on the way—but on top of everything else, I was bound to be inflicted with some kind of demonic curse too?! Can’t a girl catch a break?!

I tried to look for any more evidence to the contrary, but the queen’s name was a perfect match, and the protagonist’s surname, Évrard, matched that of the margrave’s, and the enemy country was called Llewyne... I couldn’t deny it any longer.

I was a character in a video game. And even worse, I was an antagonist.

In the game, Kiara would pop up every now and then to attack the heroes in specific areas where the queen’s invading army was stationed: forts, cities, and so on. It was actually rather annoying to fight her; she would spawn massive golems to do her bidding while she escaped.

Once the player arrived outside the queen’s castle, only then could they finally fight Kiara head-on. Naturally, this battle ended with the protagonist and his allies victorious; there was even a little animated scene where Kiara ended up impaled on someone’s sword. The memory sent goosebumps prickling up my arms.

“Nngh... I don’t want to die young! Wait, I know! What if I just don’t marry him?”

In my current state, I couldn’t use magic at all, so all I had to do was stay single. Then I wouldn’t become Kiara Credias, and I wouldn’t be forced into any demon contract, so I wouldn’t end up on the battlefield. Maybe then I could live a more peaceful life somewhere else...

That’s it. I’m getting out of here.

I pulled a small trunk out from under my bed, opened it, and took out my wallet. I still had about a hundred thousand cients to my name, given to me by the count himself right before I enrolled here. As a daughter of nobility, I was supposed to use it to pay the dormitory servants to clean my room or run miscellaneous errands for me, but instead, I did all my cleaning myself.

Why, you ask? Because I couldn’t risk anyone coming across the vial of poison I was hiding.

This, too, was a gift from Lord Patriciél. He claimed it was “for emergencies,” but what sort of emergencies required poison? Truth be told, I was tempted to dump it out somewhere, but I was worried that it would seep into the earth and make the plants wither. He hadn’t told me what was in it—just that it was enough to kill a person.

It was then I realized that the kind of man who would make me carry poison at age eleven would surely have no qualms forcing me into a contract with a demon. How did I not see this coming? Exasperated with myself, I stuffed my wallet into my pocket. Then I hiked up my black skirt and strapped the vial of poison to my thigh, along with a dagger.

The count had taught me knife combat soon after he adopted me. Naturally, he had said it was for “self-defense,” but...

First he teaches me to use a dagger, and then he gives me some poison? Who does he think I am, an assassin?

Going forward, I was going to have to live by my wits alone. The world was a dangerous place, and if I wanted to maximize my chances of survival, I would need to carry a weapon. In that sense, perhaps the count had actually done me a favor.

Alright, I’m all packed.

Carrying only whatever I could fit in my trunk, I walked out of the dormitory, taking care to walk as calmly as possible. After all, I couldn’t exactly pretend I was “just going to grab something I left in the classroom” when I was carrying a suitcase full of clothes.

I didn’t have anyone I could turn to, either. While I did have some casual friends here, they were all aristocrats through and through, and if I told them I was planning to disobey my father and strike out on my own, they’d either give me a weird look, or in the worst-case scenario, tattle on me to the count “for my own good.” Neither of these things would help me.

As I walked across campus, I planned my route carefully, avoiding any areas where other people were likely to be present. Then, at last, I reached the farthest edge of the school grounds.

I concealed myself between the hedge and the stone border wall, then heaved a sigh of relief. I’d come here hoping the hole I’d found as a younger student would still be here, and sure enough, it was. This was my way out.

The boarding school was located on a hill, and the closest town was just a short walk away. Once I arrived, I could change out of my school uniform, and then no one would be able to tell me apart from the ordinary townspeople. From there, I would need to look for some form of transportation out of this territory.

Ideally, I would’ve liked to smuggle myself into some other country, but on top of starting my life over in an unfamiliar area, the idea of having to learn an entirely new culture was rather intimidating. Fortunately, Farzia was a pretty big country; as long as I kept to a smaller, more obscure village, surely they’d never find me. After all, they’d assume a prissy rich girl couldn’t hack it in a rural, backwater town.

Yes, the countryside... That’s where I’ll go. But not too rural... Somewhere that has at least one wealthy merchant living there. That way, I might be able to find work.

And so I slipped through the hole in the wall and out into the forest of tall trees that surrounded the school. Now that I had a rough idea of my next steps, I wasn’t going to wait for sunset. But before I could take my first steps, I heard the whinny of a horse in the direction of the school gates.

Outside of the priests and the carriages that delivered fresh food in the mornings, almost no one ever visited this school. Was there some sort of family emergency that required a student to leave? Or... had Lord Patriciél sent a carriage to collect me? I decided to go find out.

To my relief, the carriage’s intended recipient appeared to be a male student about my age—one I vaguely recognized.

Once I confirmed the carriage wasn’t for me, the panic cleared from my mind... and that was when I noticed the other carriage, which appeared to be reserved exclusively for luggage. The hood was up, so I couldn’t tell how full it was, but... would it be possible to smuggle myself inside? By carriage, I could cover a lot of ground rather quickly, all the while concealing myself from potential pursuers. And if I was careful, I could quietly hop out once we had crossed the border out of the Royal Domain. That way, I wouldn’t cause them any trouble.

As I watched attentively for my big chance, the dark-haired boy suddenly turned on his heel and sprinted back into the school building; evidently he’d forgotten something. His servant(?), a silver-haired boy, followed after him. Also present were five knights on horseback, likely to serve as bodyguards; they, too, were distracted by the boy’s mad dash.

And then the Goddess played her flute—a Farzian idiom for when an opportunity unexpectedly presents itself. Supposedly, the Goddess’ flute could summon miracles from afar. And as for me, I was pretty sure I heard her trill.

The next thing I knew, my body was moving on autopilot as I dashed over to the hooded carriage and climbed inside. By some miracle, no one noticed; perhaps it truly was the work of the Goddess. Then, a short while later, I felt the carriage commence as if I wasn’t even there.

As the luggage began to rattle and sway, I moved to the back, where the driver was less likely to hear me. The floor of the carriage was littered with boxes of all sizes, so there wasn’t much walking space. I located a large box containing a small shelf covered in cloth, relocated the shelf to a spot where it wouldn’t topple over, then climbed into the box myself.

Tucked away in my hiding place, I let out a sigh of relief. As the tension drained from my body, I suddenly found myself quite sleepy. Rocked by the motions of the carriage, my back knocked painfully against the side of the box, but even that wasn’t enough to stop me. Before I knew it, I had fallen fast asleep.

◇◇◇

Five hours later, Évrard and company arrived at a small town. The inn they’d booked was small and cozy—a brick building that was originally someone’s home prior to being remodeled.

Alan’s assigned room was so small that he could only walk two steps with his hand outstretched before he touched the far wall. Dinner was unsophisticated: processed meat, vegetable soup, and a small loaf of hard bread. But he and the other knights had been trained for battlefield conditions from an early age, and as such, he was used to frugal meals and less-than-extravagant sleeping quarters. After all, a margrave’s duty was to defend the national border, and as the son of Margrave Évrard, that duty extended to him, too.

After dinner, Alan took a stroll outside the inn with his equally young associate. They hadn’t seen each other in a while, and there was a lot to talk about. Accompanied by a single guard, they walked along, chatting merrily.

But if an outsider had been around to overhear them, they would have overheard something quite peculiar:

“Truth be told, it feels so suffocating to be shuttled around in a carriage.”

“I quite agree. I much prefer riding a horse, even if it means my legs are worse off.”

“Sad to say, but a carriage is our only option.”

“You could share a horse with Wentworth, you know.”

“Ridiculous. I’m not sharing a horse with another man. In case you’ve forgotten, I’m fifteen!”

“What other choice is there, if we’re short on horses?”

Alan grimaced as his blue-eyed companion snickered at him. Judging from their unreserved banter, one would understand them to be equals. They carried on in this fashion for some time... but right as they passed by the carriage house where the carriages were parked for the night, Alan’s associate stopped short.

“What’s the matter, Reggie?”

“Shh. Listen closely.”

The other boy, Reggie, closed his eyes. Alan, too, fell silent and perked up his ears. Then, finally, he heard the sound Reggie was referring to.

“Sausage... Cream... No, I’m stuffed...”

There was a muffled voice coming from the carriage house—which was by all accounts empty, save for their two carriages.

Alan’s expression stiffened. The voice was young and female, but that didn’t mean they could let their guards down. After all, if this person had managed to board the margrave’s carriage undetected, then it could be an assassin for all he knew.

“Is she... talking in her sleep? We need to drag her out of there while we have the chance.” Alan hailed the nearby guard.

In contrast, Reggie cocked his head pensively. “I’m not sure... If we were dealing with an assassin here, would she really risk sleeping on the job? Especially considering all the guards we have with us?”

“You never take these things seriously,” Alan snorted. Fortunately, his companion didn’t seem opposed to tracking down the stowaway, at the very least. He turned to the guard. “We suspect someone’s aboard the carriage.”

“Stay back. I’ll investigate.”

The tall, dark-haired knight beckoned to the rest of his squad, who had tagged along in secret. One of them remained with Alan and Reggie, while the other accompanied the dark-haired knight into the carriage house.

As they tracked the voice, they learned that it was coming not from the passenger carriage, but the hooded luggage carriage. The dark-haired knight attempted to enter from the back, but his body was too large, so he started shifting boxes out of the way.

“Wait, Wentworth.” Reggie jogged over to the carriage.

“Reggie! Don’t!” Alan hissed, as loud as he could reasonably get away with without waking the stowaway. But Reggie had already run around to the front of the carriage and climbed aboard. The dark-haired knight, Wentworth, dashed up to the front to try to stop him, but it was too late.

Before they could react, Reggie peeked out from around the hood. Thank the heavens, he’s safe. Everyone heaved a sigh of relief.

“Damn it, Reggie, don’t run off on your own! You need to act in a manner befitting of your station!”

“Oh, I’m fine. See?”

As he spoke, Reggie hopped out of the carriage... carrying a brown-haired girl wearing a familiar black school uniform. She looked to be a bit younger than they were.

“I found her sound asleep in there,” Reggie grinned. “And if she’s a student from your school, then that means she’s the daughter of a noble, right?”

Evidently, he didn’t see her as very dangerous. Alan scowled.

“She could’ve stolen that uniform from anyone,” he warned. “That said, she certainly doesn’t look like a commoner. More importantly, how were you able to lift her without rousing her?”

“I don’t know. Maybe she’s just a really sound sleeper.”

It didn’t add up. Surely even the heaviest sleeper would snap awake if someone grabbed them.

“Let me take her, milord,” said Wentworth. “I need to examine her.”

At his prompting, Reggie handed over the girl, and together they all headed back to the inn. Once they arrived back at Alan’s room, Wentworth laid her down on the bed. Still, she did not stir.

Under the bright light, she was starting to look more and more like an ordinary heiress. Her light brown hair was healthy and glossy, and though it was a little messy at the moment, it was clear she brushed it every day. Her skin was pale from minimal exposure to the sun, and her fingers showed no telltale traces of “dishpan hands.”

Furthermore, when they removed her boots, it became clear that they weren’t borrowed, but rather tailor-made to fit her feet. Now even Wentworth was starting to believe that she was merely an innocent stowaway.

“If she turns out to be high-born, I’ll need you to apologize on my behalf, milord,” he said to Alan as he started to rummage through her pockets.

From there, he produced a soft cotton handkerchief and a wallet. Its contents were fairly sizable, casting further doubt upon the possibility that she was a commoner. Lastly, from the inner pocket of her coat, he retrieved a piece of white stationery.

“A letter?”

“With this, I can confirm that she’s a student from your school. Take a look.” Wentworth offered the letter to Alan, who took it. Together with Reggie, he peered down at the brief message penned therein.

The sender: Lord Patriciél. Evidently she was his daughter... but this “letter” was more of a directive, with the sort of commanding language one would use to address a servant. Apparently, a marriage had been arranged for her, and she was to drop out of school immediately. Further, he would be sending a carriage to pick her up and bring her home in time for the ceremony.

“And to the viscount of Credias, of all people...”

“Yeesh. She has my condolences.”

Not only was the man old enough to be her father, but he was an infamous lecher who was rumored to keep a harem of women in his manor. Clearly this girl—“Kiara,” according to the letterhead—had escaped from the school in protest of this arranged marriage.

Meanwhile, Alan was baffled. One would think all this patting and digging around would have startled her awake, and yet she slept right through it. Just then, Reggie sniffed the air.

“Aha! I’ve figured it out, Alan. A sleeping-draught’s been brushed onto the stationery!”

“What?!” Alan nearly dropped the letter in his surprise, but Reggie snatched it deftly between his index and middle finger.

“I imagine the plan was for her to breathe in the fumes while she read it, allowing the draught to kick in almost instantly. Most of it has evaporated by now, but back when she first took it out of the envelope, I bet she inhaled quite a lot.” Reggie stared down at the sleeping Kiara, his expression stony. “It’s obvious the count was intending to take her home by force.”

“That’s a hell of a way to treat his own daughter, don’t you think?”

Was he really that desperate to enact this political marriage? Even the usually stoic Wentworth was frowning with concern.

“Clearly he anticipated that she’d try to escape, so instead he decided to knock her unconscious. And by the time she woke, the deed would already be done,” Reggie surmised. “Regardless, I think it’s safe to say she’s no assassin.”

◇◇◇

Blissfully unaware of the situation I had landed myself in, I continued to sleep... and sleep... and sleep... until the sun had risen the next day. As I stirred, I could tell that I’d been out for quite some time; in a sense, I was actually impressed I’d slept for so long in a hard wooden box. Perhaps I was just a really sound sleeper.

Vaguely, it occurred to me that this box felt an awful lot like a regular bed.

Then I opened my eyes... and found an unfamiliar older boy staring back.

“Wha... AAAAAAAAHHHH!”

The scream caught in my throat, and I doubled forward into a coughing fit that brought tears to my eyes. As I coughed, the unfamiliar boy started to rub my back. Ugh... Thank you.

Still, I needed to stay on guard.

“Th-Thank you,” I sputtered, looking up at him. He didn’t seem flustered; instead, he pulled his hand away and continued to observe me like a scientist watching a lab rat.

He had a head of dark hair, and he wore a dark gray, long-sleeved tunic made of thick fabric, with elaborate embroidery here and there. Judging from the blue cloak and the sword hanging at his hip, he looked to be a knight in service to a noble house.

Having only just woken up, my mind was still fuzzy. However, a few moments later, I realized that I was decidedly not aboard a carriage. Moreover, I was in a bed in a room somewhere.

And when I finally realized who had found me, I very nearly leapt out of my skin.

“Eeeek! I’m really sorry for sneaking onto your carriage!”

Sitting on my knees, I bent forward until my forehead touched the mattress, hoping against hope that they would accept my apology.

“I did it purely on impulse, and for that, I’m sorry! I took one look at your carriage, and then I swear I heard the Goddess play her flute, so I went for it! I promise I’ll be out of your hair as fast as humanly possible! Oh, and I can pay you for the ride! I’ll give you a fat tip as a token of my apology, so please don’t press charges!”

Terrified, I plunged a shaking hand into my pocket and pulled some money out of my wallet. But when I moved to put it on the side table, I instead tumbled face-first off the bed.

“Whoooa!”

There was a loud THUD as I hit the wooden floor. Reeling from the pain (not to mention the blow to my ego), I found myself temporarily incapacitated.

First they had caught me illegally trespassing aboard their carriage, then they had carried me inside so I could sleep in a proper bed, and now I had just disgraced myself in front of them. If there was a Kiara-sized hole nearby, I wanted to crawl into it and never come out.

The guy didn’t even crack a smile, either. Awkward.

But just as I was trying to decide how to remedy the situation, someone started laughing.

“Pffft... hahaha! That’s the first time I’ve ever seen a girl tumble out of bed!”

I had assumed the dark-haired deadpan guy was the only other person in the room, but evidently I was mistaken. I looked up to find that the door was open, and two young guys were standing there.

The dark-haired one was wearing the boys’ version of my black boarding school uniform, which meant he was assuredly the owner of the carriage I’d boarded. He gave me a blank stare as the other boy next to him cackled hysterically.

The giggler, meanwhile, had long, glossy silver hair tied back in a ponytail, with shorter strands that fell over his ears. Likewise, his skin was nearly as pale as his hair, and his eyes, currently swimming in tears of laughter, were bright blue in color.

As for his clothes, he wore a navy blue coat over a white collared tunic—attendant’s garb, by my estimation. After all, those knee-length coats came with large pockets designed to hold letters and other delivery items. But something about his attire struck me as almost... holy, in a way. Possibly because he was just that handsome.

On reflex, I found myself wanting to ask “Are you an angel?” but fortunately, I had the sense to bite my tongue. After all, he was a guy; I wasn’t sure he would appreciate that sort of comparison. Still, I couldn’t take my eyes off him. It felt like I’d seen him somewhere before...

A beat later, the dark-haired boy (whom I also vaguely recognized) jabbed the silver-haired boy in the arm. “That’s enough, Reggie.”

“Sorry, Alan. It just tickled me, that’s all. Anyway, are you alright, miss? Can you stand?”

The silver-haired boy (Reggie, apparently) walked over and offered me his hand. For a moment, I stared at him in a daze, then gingerly reached out to accept—

“Reggie!”

“Milord!”

—but froze, startled, as the two other guys shouted in unison. Come now, I won’t bite, I thought with a frown, but then it hit me. Of course. I was a total stranger to these people. Worse still, I was caught stowing away aboard their vehicle. They had every right to suspect me of ill will.

Thus, I decided it was best I didn’t accept his help—but before I could retract my hand, he seized me by the wrist.

“There’s nothing to fear, you two. I believe this is a residual effect of the sleeping-draught.”

“What are you—ack!”

Sure enough, right as he pulled me to my feet, my knees buckled, and I slumped back to the floor. I blinked in surprise. Had all that sleep weakened me so terribly?

Meanwhile, Reggie still held me by the wrist, though he didn’t seem interested in giving it a second try. Instead, he turned back to the other two.

“See? Clearly this is another effect of the sedative, intended to keep her from escaping. There’s no way a lucid person would tumble face-first off the bed like that.”

“Wait, what? ‘Keep me from escaping’?”

I was embarrassed to learn that he’d witnessed my less-than-graceful swan dive to the floor, but more importantly, something else had caught my attention. Who was I supposed to be escaping, exactly? And what sedative was he talking about? When did I ingest such a thing? Suddenly, I found myself paranoid. Did these men do this to me?

Just then, Alan finally broke his long silence.

“Last night, we found you asleep in our carriage,” he explained.

Yes, that made sense. I could remember nodding off to sleep in there.

“So we carried you out, but you didn’t wake. Then we tried shaking you and shouting at you, both to no avail. And since you were a stowaway, we needed to take every precaution, so we examined your possessions. That’s how we came across the letter from your father... and we determined that it was laced with a sleeping agent.”

He held up the letter I had received from Lord Patriciél.

“What...? So he put a sleeping-draught... in the letter?” Was that really necessary?

“Lady Kiara Patriciél, we believe your father attempted to sedate you in order to prevent you from escaping the arranged marriage prescribed in this letter. And sure enough, that is precisely what you attempted to do. However, you managed to find your way to safety before the sleeping-draught took effect.”

“Nngh...”

Sure enough, I’d taken one look at that letter and bolted like a bat out of hell. After all, he was only my adoptive father; there was no love between us. I didn’t much care if his plans were dashed. I was fourteen, and I was convinced that with a bit of hard work, I could make it on my own.

At no point, however, did I suspect that the count might have laced the letter with a sleeping agent in order to take me home and marry me off by force. I suppose even he must have realized that no one in their right mind would happily agree to marry an awful lecher like Lord Credias.

God, I’m so glad I got out of there.

The second this thought crossed my mind, a wave of mingled relief and exhaustion washed over me, and my upper body slumped forward.

“You alright?” Reggie asked gently, still holding my hand.

“Frankly, I feel like passing out... but I know that’ll just create more hassle for everyone, so I’ll endure it.”

After all, it was probably really annoying to have to carry my unconscious body—and I’d put them through it once already, so I didn’t want to make this first impression any worse.

Then Reggie started snickering again. A real giggler, this guy.

From there, I explained my circumstances—that the count had “adopted” me from my stepmother, and that I ran from the marriage due to my would-be fiancé’s terrible reputation. Obviously I couldn’t tell them about my past life, so I wasn’t able to explain that I was trying to avoid being turned into a villain. Fortunately, they seemed reasonably convinced that a girl who had essentially been sold into slavery wouldn’t want to be forced into marriage.

To be fair, this world likely had its share of horrible biological parents as well, but to them, this inhumane treatment seemed to make more sense coming from someone who wasn’t related to me by blood.

“What on earth were you planning to do after you left the dormitory?” Alan asked, his annoyance plain as he sat across from me on the opposite bed.

Alan was fifteen, one year my senior, which explained how we’d never met. At school, classes were grouped mostly by age and by gender. The only exception was theology class, which boys and girls attended together. Without some invested research on my part, I never would have had the opportunity to meet him.

“Well, I figured I have enough money for carriage fare, so I thought I’d travel to a distant corner of some other territory and make my living doing... I don’t know, needlework or something.”

“And then some kidnapper would’ve come along and snatched you right off the road,” Wentworth muttered under his breath, his expression impassive. Supposedly he was Alan’s knight-guard.

He was absolutely right, of course, but due to a certain undisclosed reason, I was just that desperate. I wish I could be honest with them. Ugh, it’s so frustrating having to keep these secrets.

As I awkwardly averted my eyes, Alan’s attendant Reggie spoke up. “Same difference, really. You read the letter. The count was already planning to kidnap her himself.”

He did have a point. Either way, I would’ve been sold off to someone against my will. The only difference was that in the letter, my future owner was named outright.

“Out of the furnace and into the fire,” Wentworth mused, seemingly convinced. Excellent. Thank you, Reggie.

That said, this Reggie person struck me as peculiar. He was an attendant—a servant—and yet he addressed his master, Alan, like one would a friend. Was there more to the story? Curious as I was, I couldn’t bring myself to ask. After all, once I left, I wouldn’t be seeing them again.

In fact, I was pretty sure I needed to minimize our interactions at all costs. Why? Because once I learned Alan’s surname, I nearly screamed.

Alan Évrard, son of Margrave Évrard. As it turned out, I very much knew who he was. Not because we’d met at boarding school—but because he was the protagonist of that video game.

The reason I didn’t realize sooner was because he was two years younger than his game counterpart, who was seventeen at the start of the storyline. At the moment, he only came up to Wentworth’s chin, but in two years’ time he would grow taller, and his face would lose much of its youthful roundness. In my experience, puberty had the tendency to make guys more... what’s the word... broad? Rugged?

In the game, Alan’s expression was always grim and joyless—focused entirely on the objective before him, like a sort of tunnel vision. The real-life Alan was still serious in temperament, mind you, but not quite to that extent.

There was one other reason I didn’t recognize him right away: his name was so commonplace. At school, at least two of the girls I knew had a brother named Alan. So when I heard that this guy’s name was Alan, my only real reaction was “Oh hey, another Alan. I guess it was a popular baby name back then.”

Now that I knew who he was, however, sharing a room with him had become incredibly uncomfortable. Granted, I hadn’t reached villain status yet, but if destiny had had its way, this was the guy who would’ve killed me. On top of that, I’d smuggled myself aboard his carriage. And since I wasn’t originally “on his side,” I felt exceedingly out of place here.

Thus, I decided it was high time we parted ways.

“Well, um... Again, I’m sorry for what I did. I’ll probably recover my mobility once enough time has passed, and I’m sure you all have somewhere to be, so by all means, feel free to get going without me.”

The sun was now high in the sky—noontime or thereabouts, by my estimation. Because of me, they were wasting precious daylight. And yet, for some reason, they declined my suggestion.

“Think about it. We’re talking about the sort of man who was planning to kidnap you while you were unconscious. Do you really think he’ll just shrug his shoulders and give up?” Reggie remarked.

Alan grimaced at the implication. “Our boarding school receives very few visitors as it is. First they’ll comb the area within the distance she could have reasonably traveled on foot—and when they don’t find her, they’ll start looking at the visitor records. Then they’ll see that our carriages departed the same day she went missing, and they’ll track us down. Plus, they’ll have full knowledge of the sedative’s effects. If they know she should still be incapacitated, and they haven’t found her collapsed on the side of the road, they’ll start searching the inns, one by one. Long story short: they’re going to find you here.”

“Nngh...”

He was completely right. In order to haul away my unconscious body while the drug was still in effect, the count would’ve needed to send a carriage straight away... so it was entirely possible they already knew I was missing and had started a full-scale search. In that case, it wouldn’t take long for them to arrive. And in the meantime, my legs were still jelly.

As I was trying to figure out my next move, Alan sighed in exasperation and looked at Reggie. “If it’s all the same to you, I’d rather we didn’t put ourselves at risk by harboring this fugitive.”

“What’s the harm? Come now, you’re a better man than that. The Alan I know would never leave a helpless lamb to be torn apart by the wolves.”

Surely this was intended as a compliment, and yet Alan scowled. “Oh, I’m the softie here? This was all your idea. You’re the real bleeding heart!”

“Is that so?” Reggie asked nonchalantly. “I’d have to disagree. After all, it’s your family who will be harboring her.”

“Taking in strays off the street puts us all at risk, Reggie. Someone could get hurt. Sensitive information could get leaked. We shouldn’t do this.”

“I get that. But are you going to be able to sleep at night, knowing we abandoned her to her fate? Because I don’t think I could.”

“Hmph...” Alan started to say something, but instead turned to me.

Naturally, I had put two and two together by this point. Apparently Alan was of a mind to help me somehow—shuttle me to a distant town, perhaps? I gazed at him hopefully for a moment, and he seemed to intuit what I was feeling.

“Don’t get excited. You might not like what I’m about to offer you.”

“Or perhaps I will! I won’t know until you say it.” Out with it, then!

“You think she’d be a bit more devastated, considering she just found out her father drugged her. She must be the optimistic type,” Reggie murmured, impressed.

Sorry, but I don’t have time to throw myself a pity party. That can wait until AFTER I’ve escaped! I thought to myself.

Meanwhile, Alan let out another long sigh. “Theoretically, we could help you escape. You could work at my estate, if you so desired. After all, if we left you in some random town, you’d inevitably turn to a life of crime in order to survive—and that’s the best-case scenario. So to keep that off my conscience, I’d rather we took you with us.”

Work for him? If so, that would mean I’d officially join his side... and that would make it much less likely I’d end up a villain!

“Sounds great! I’m in!” I responded eagerly and without hesitation.

“I’m not finished,” Alan cautioned me, holding up a hand. “If we employ you, we’ll have to keep your family affiliations a secret, lest we land ourselves in hot water with Lord Patriciél. And we’re not on the best of terms with him as it is.”

The count had long-standing ties with Llewyne, since he used to own land there. Hence he sided with them in Farzia: Kingdom at War. And since the Évrard territory served as the border between Farzia and Llewyne, they were the first line of defense. But that wasn’t all that put him at odds with the House of Évrard; he had simply never liked them to begin with.

“In order to keep you hidden, we may ask you to work as a commoner. And even if you change your mind afterward, you won’t be allowed to leave the territory without permission—we can’t risk anyone leaking intel. Break the rules, and you’ll go straight to the dungeon. So, still willing to accept?”

If he thought any of that would change my mind, he was sorely mistaken. After all, if I stayed on Évrard land, the chances of me turning evil drastically decreased. Besides, these men had treated me very kindly in spite of my selfish actions, so I was sure his family was full of good, honest people. After all, their son’s a video game protagonist.

Plus, working at the margrave’s estate was sure to pay better than common needlework. I couldn’t possibly have asked for a better opportunity.

I beamed back at him. “I don’t object in the slightest. By all means, let me work for the House of Évrard! If you need me to forsake my nobility to masquerade as a commoner, then consider it done! Should I change my first name too? Whatever you need, I’ll do it!”

He blinked at me in disbelief. Wentworth stared, equally dumbfounded. And as for Reggie, he was clutching his sides, shoulders shaking, like he was trying to hold back another bout of hysterical laughter. Alan looked over at him, perplexed. Is Reggie not usually this much of a giggler or something?

And so it was decided that I would accompany their group back to the Évrard estate, where I would be hired to work for them. We set off at once, heading up the northeast high road.

When we left, my legs were still out of commission, so Wentworth was kind enough to carry me like a bride to the luggage carriage. It wasn’t as embarrassing as my pratfall earlier this morning, but it was still fairly awkward, especially with Alan, Reggie, and all the knights watching.

It was then, however, that I realized why I couldn’t walk: because I couldn’t feel my legs. They were so numb, I couldn’t feel his arm tucked under my knees as he carried me, and when I closed my eyes, it felt like I was levitating. This loss of sensation terrified me.

As for the reason I ended up in the luggage carriage, they had actually offered to let me sit with Alan and the others, but I turned them down. After all, if they were really going to treat me like a commoner, then I couldn’t very well ride in the same carriage as the young heir of the house.

“Who is that Reggie guy, anyway?”

I dug through my memories of Game-Farzia, trying to recall if there was a Game-Reggie at any point. He seemed familiar, but I couldn’t quite place him; I couldn’t remember anything except major battles and plot points. Still, considering he was on such good terms with the protagonist, I was convinced he had to have his own character counterpart.

Maybe he was left out of the storyline because he’s not a soldier?

That made sense. While the game had brief dialogue exchanges and occasional animated cutscenes, combat gameplay was the main focus.

As the feeling steadily returned to my legs, I swayed them to and fro. The knights had rearranged the interior so I could sit on an aptly-sized box; they even let me borrow a cushion. At first it felt like every jolt of the carriage was going to send me careening to the floor again, but as my legs slowly recovered, so did my sense of balance. An hour later, they were fully functional once more.

Man, am I ever glad I got out of there.

Once they told me about the sedative, I instantly knew I’d made the right choice. If I hadn’t bolted when I did, I would’ve conked out on the floor, and then someone from the House of Patriciél would’ve come along and collected me, and then... Ugh, I don’t even want to IMAGINE what would’ve happened next.

Sure, I would’ve landed a cushy job at the royal palace, but in exchange, I’d have had to sleep with a disgusting old man.

Maybe that explains it...

Perhaps Game-Kiara served the queen so faithfully because she didn’t want to go back to her husband’s estate. If so, I couldn’t blame her. After what she went through, I’d be traumatized too. In fact, perhaps Lord Patriciél planned it this way on purpose so I would want to ally with the queen. I shuddered.

Then, before I knew it, it was lunchtime.

They handed me two pieces of bread with grilled meat folded inside, and I ate it with gratitude. It was a little dry, but I didn’t care. I washed it down with some water and sighed in satisfaction.

Just then, Reggie walked into my field of vision a short distance away. He beckoned to me; the knights watched him do it, but didn’t stop him. Curious, I approached him.

Next, he led me into a grove of trees a short distance from the road. Above us, the autumn sky was clear, and the crisp air was thick with the smell of fallen leaves. What sort of conversation would require this much privacy? I wondered.

Then he stopped, smiled, and said:

“Could you show me your legs, please?”

“Wh-What?!”

My legs? Why? In Farzia, it was considered shameful for a girl ten or older to expose anything above her ankles. Even if it was an accident, anyone who witnessed her in that state would judge her and call her a harlot. Surely this sort of request was reserved for more... intimate situations... Oh god! I thought he was an angel, but... what if he’s actually a total womanizer?! Frightened, I took a step back.

When it came to romantic relations, I knew the basics. But even my past-life memories didn’t extend past age fourteen for some reason, so when it came to the intricacies of how to navigate such a thing, I was utterly clueless. After all, I didn’t have any previous experience.

In my past life, girls were generally encouraged to fight back against their harassers, but in a world with a rigid class system, I couldn’t exactly use physical force against a nobleman’s attendant. Especially not after I’d agreed to be treated as a commoner.

I took another step back, but Reggie countered with a step forward. This process repeated itself until I inadvertently backed myself against a tree, at which point Reggie placed both hands on either side of my shoulders, boxing me in. For some reason this reminded me of a crossing gate at the train tracks; I could almost hear the whistle of the oncoming locomotive, warning me that I was in danger.

Trapped, I started to tremble. He chuckled. “Let me guess... A dagger and a vial?”

I gasped. He was right—I was still wearing them strapped to my thigh. But until recently, I’d lost all feeling in my legs, so I’d completely forgotten. And since no one else had asked about them until now, my pannier must have kept them hidden.

But Reggie had realized I was armed, and now he was demanding I remove them.

“If Wentworth and the others find out, things could get very complicated for you,” he explained.

It seemed he was willing to keep quiet about it so long as I did as he asked... in which case, his request to see my legs was probably more of a request for me to come clean. This realization made my face flush pink with shame, as I had very nearly leapt to the most awkward false conclusion imaginable: that Reggie was coming on to me.

“I’ll give them to you later, I promise,” I squeaked in a tiny voice.

Going forward, I would need to convince Reggie that I meant them no ill will, so I was willing to cooperate, but taking them off right this moment would prove... challenging.

But Reggie responded to this in a way I never would have imagined.

“You need to give them to me now, okay?”

Startled, I looked up at him. He smiled sweetly back.

“I want you to remove it where I can see you. That way I can check for any other concealed weapons while I’m at it. You wouldn’t want me to have to rip them off you by force, right?”

“Nnngghh...”

He was right. Plus, we’d only just met yesterday, so even if I promised him I wouldn’t use them, he probably wouldn’t trust me. Still, I couldn’t just hike up my skirt while someone else was watching! I don’t have a thing for humiliation, buddy!

At the same time, however, I got the sense that I was in no position to decline, so I decided to look at it from a past-life point of view. After all, I was wearing bloomers down to my calves, and the weapons were belted over the bloomers. To compare it to the clothes in Japan, I was basically wearing sweatpants underneath. Surely that was more acceptable than bare skin.

Yeah, that’s it! Think of the short-shorts I used to wear in my past life! And the bikinis! See? Compared to that, this is nothing!

Still, for the sake of my last lingering dregs of shame, I decided I needed to do this with my back turned.

“G-Give me a moment,” I stammered.

He seemed to sense that I was going to cooperate, and so he took a step back to afford me some room. Relieved, I angled my body to hide as much as possible as I lifted my skirt and removed the leather belt from my thigh. I knew I wouldn’t be able to prevent him from seeing my calves, but at the very least, I maintained my modesty from the knees up.

Then I hastily fixed my skirt, turned back, and handed him the belt, weapons and all. Fortunately, he accepted it without asking me to show more. Maybe he already knows I’m not concealing anything else... Wait, does that mean he looked up my skirt while I was sleeping?!

At this belated realization, I bit back a mortified scream.

“Why were you wearing this, anyway? I understand you probably wanted a way to protect yourself while you’re on the run, but... how did a daughter of nobility acquire such things in the first place?”

“Well... Lord Patriciél trained me in knife combat for some reason,” I answered honestly. “And when I enrolled in boarding school, he gave me this vial of poison to take with me.”

His expression hardened. “Interesting.”

“Once I got to school, I wanted to throw it out but didn’t know where... so I just held onto it. But since I was planning to go it alone, I figured I should bring it with me for self-defense.”

“Yeah, it’s not exactly safe to travel these roads on your own. If it were me, I probably would have done the same. Alright then.”

“Please, you’ve got to believe me. I would never try to use these weapons against you or Lord Alan.”

I gazed at him, my hands balled tightly into fists. “Alright then” was not the same thing as “I trust you,” and I was scared that I’d put him on guard. If they wanted to dump me on the side of the road, I could understand that well enough, but... what if they threw me in the dungeon the second we arrived at their estate? And what if they never let me out for the rest of my life? The whole point of this daring escape was to avoid a tragic death!

“If you hadn’t complied with my request, then I imagine we would’ve had to start considering our other options. But when faced with a choice between your dignity and my trust, you chose the latter. Isn’t that right, Kiara?”

He smiled at me, and it was then that I finally understood: the purpose behind his outrageous request was to see if I would be willing to follow orders. And evidently I had passed the test.

Next, Reggie took me by the hand and led me to a nearby riverbank. He opened the vial and sniffed it; once he determined that it was safe for plants, he dumped the contents at the foot of the closest tree. I explained to him how I’d feared that it would create a giant, conspicuous patch of dead grass wherever I chose to dump it, and he snickered at me.

Then he loaded the emptied vial back into its pouch on my belt and flung the whole thing into the deepest part of the river. Truth be told, part of me was scared to lose my only weapons, but at the same time, I was a little bit relieved that they were gone. With my past-life memories now fresh in my mind, daggers and the like just seemed so... unsafe.

Reggie glanced back at me and blinked. “You look pretty happy, considering I just permanently disarmed you.”

“Perhaps it’s strange, but it feels as though I’m finally free.”

At this, Reggie reached out and—inexplicably—stroked my hair. His gentle touch brought back old memories. When was the last time someone caressed me like this? Not since my mother died, perhaps. My father was never affectionate, in words or in gestures.

As I pined for a maternal embrace from days long past, Reggie took my hand once more. “Let’s head back.”

I nodded and obediently followed after him.

◇◇◇

From then on, Reggie would come and talk to me during every break. In fact, sometimes he would grab my hand and drag me to where the others were standing to join the conversation. Perhaps he wanted me to be more social... or perhaps this was his way of showing that he didn’t harbor any lingering suspicions towards me.

As for Alan and the knights, they acted a little awkward around me at first, but thankfully, by the third day of our journey, they had acclimated to my presence. I didn’t have much to talk about other than school, but fortunately they found the stories of my escapades reasonably entertaining. Then Alan asked me about my coursework, and my inability to answer made it plain that I hadn’t actually studied much at all.

“Good grief. I’m amazed you didn’t flunk out,” he sighed.

Yeah, well, I’ve basically dropped out now anyway, so lay off!

And so our peaceful travels continued; I sat in the luggage carriage, rocking back and forth with the motions and staring into space.

The most unique aspect about this world compared to the last, however, was that ours was rife with monsters—for example, wolves that could control the wind, or vultures that could freeze you in place with a single squawk. In other words, Farzia was your standard fantasy world.

And it was on this day that we had the first monster encounter of our journey.

We were traveling across a rocky meadow in the direction of a deep, dark forest. The knights were all on guard in anticipation of an attack—but as it turned out, our enemy struck not from the forest, but the meadow itself. And these creatures were decidedly not animal in appearance.

All around us, the grass rippled violently. I watched idly from the back of the carriage, wondering if the wind had picked up or something, when suddenly—

“Whoa!”

—the meadow itself began to scatter sparks as a bolt of lightning crackled over the grass.

“Zapgrass!” someone shouted.

Now I understood. Zapgrass was a type of grass—or was it an animal?—that could create static electricity by rubbing its blades together. Supposedly, it could walk using the roots that grew out of its bulb.

“Wow, they weren’t kidding! And it’s headed this way!”

With a dry crunching sound, the patch of grass hoisted up its roots and started crawling in our direction, all the while crackling with static. Oddly, the wrinkles on its bulb resembled the face of a jolly old man.

Reflexively, I backed away further into the carriage until I was safely shielded from the sparks... but unfortunately, I’d forgotten that this carriage had horses attached to it.

A shrill whinny pierced the air, and the next thing I knew, the carriage jolted violently as the horses reared. The sudden upward motion sent me flying out through the opening in the back.

“Owww... AAAAHHH!”

Luckily for me, my landing was cushioned by my bulky pannier and the soft, thick grass, so the worst I suffered was the pain of impact. But then I saw the zapgrass crawling my way, dragging its roots along... and although it was only an arm’s length in size, now that I was lying helpless on the ground, it looked downright enormous.

Panicked, I tried to escape, but my legs were shaking so badly that I couldn’t stand. Instead, I fumbled along on my hands and knees. Unfortunately, the luggage carriage had been positioned just outside the forest, so I didn’t have a lot of options in terms of refuge.

Just then, a static spark brushed my arm.

“Aah! Ow ow ow!”

Did it burn me? Either way, the pain snapped me to my senses. I leapt to my feet and started running as fast as I could. The knights were all busy calming the horses and defending the carriages from the zapgrasses; when they spotted me, they stopped and stared in disbelief.

“What the...? You fell out?!”

Apparently they hadn’t even noticed.

“Just stay behind us!” shouted Wentworth, who was the captain of the squad. But he didn’t need to convince me—I was already jogging over to Alan and Reggie, who were holding onto the horses’ reins to ensure they’d stay put.

Out of breath, I collapsed next to them. They stared at me, mouths agape.

“I thought you were in the carriage!”

“I fell out,” I wheezed, gasping for air.

“No wonder it was so quiet in there,” Alan muttered. Judging from the implication, he seemed to think I was some kind of noisemaker, but I certainly didn’t remember ever doing anything to earn that sort of reputation.

Thankfully, by the time I caught my breath, the knights had finished fighting off the zapgrasses. One hard smack with a tree branch could knock them unconscious; after that, all that remained was to fling them as far away as possible.

Now I understood why the meadow here was so barren. After all, the zapgrasses would scorch any trees that tried to grow.

We were safe for now, but I could still hear crackling along the high road. There were a lot more of them where that one came from—maybe they were swarming.

“Looks like this road’s too perilous for the time being,” Reggie commented as Wentworth jogged over. The knight nodded in agreement.

“But we can’t simply wait around for them to migrate,” Alan argued, glancing briefly at me. Was he worried that Lord Patriciél’s men were after us? Was that why he felt the need to hurry? It warmed my heart to think that he was concerned for my well-being.

First he had hired me off the street, and now he was taking pains to ensure my continued safety. What a good guy, I thought to myself. Feeling somewhat guilty for the pressure my presence added to the situation, I offered an alternative solution.

“What if we split up? I’ll go through the forest by myself.” After all, barring any extreme circumstances, I could probably get by with a dagger and some food rations—

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

“Are you stupid?”

“I don’t think I can agree to that.”

Unfortunately, all three of them shot me down in spectacular fashion.

“Considering how you reacted to the zapgrass, I’m not confident that you could defend yourself,” Wentworth explained. “Furthermore, this here is no ordinary forest—this is the Forest of the Thorn Princess.”

“Thorn Princess?” I repeated. The name sounded familiar, but I couldn’t quite put my finger on it.

“They say she’s an ancestor to the Farzian royal family,” Reggie added helpfully. “According to legend, she’s an immortal spellcaster who uses magic to wield thorny brambles at will, and she lives right here in this forest. Supposedly, she has a deep hatred of men, and any who set foot in her domain will find their path blocked with thorns.”

Farzian princess. Thorn magic. Hatred of men. Suddenly, it hit me.

“Oh, the Pedo Princess,” I murmured to myself.

In Game-Farzia, she was a minor character—a spellcaster with the appearance of a young girl. She only allowed women to enter her forest, but as long as you had at least one female character in your party, she would assist you in battle.

When the artbook for the game was released in Japan, however, her entry concluded with “Has a penchant for small boys.” This single sentence changed her in the eyes of the players forever. “What, so she’s a pedophile?!” That was how the fanbase learned that she did not, in fact, have a hatred of men.

Later, the developers revealed that she “enjoyed watching young boys” and purposely chose a prepubescent form so as to not frighten them. But young boys rarely came along, and so the locals came to the misinformed conclusion that no men were permitted inside the forest whatsoever. Conversely, she never attacked women, further cementing the belief that only the fairer sex was allowed entry.

“But I’m not a man, so... Oh, right.”

Just in time, I remembered another detail about the Thorn Princess: to help stave off her boredom and loneliness, she liked to keep a lot of pets. Wolves, wildcats, and even some giant rats. As such, the animals that lived in the forest were reserved exclusively as prey for her precious pets; anyone who tried to hunt for themselves would be attacked without mercy. And since men couldn’t enter, no one could exterminate her beasts. This was how the Forest of the Thorn Princess had earned a reputation for being dangerous. As a result, the locals decided that the most they could do was send women and children to gather fruit from the trees on the farthest outskirts.

Right as I was about to give up on the prospect of convincing them otherwise, however, Alan spoke up.

“What if we went the long way around? There’s a road along the outer edge, isn’t there?”

Sure enough, we could see the telltale signs of wheel tracks carving an arc around the outskirts of the forest. The previous travelers had all probably encountered the same zapgrasses and subsequently opted to navigate around the forest instead. But I couldn’t spot any zapgrasses in the shadows of the trees; maybe they needed direct sunlight for photosynthesis or something.

Thus, Alan’s suggestion was readily accepted.

As we geared up to get moving, the others insisted that I ride with Alan in the passenger carriage instead. Apparently they were worried that I would fall out again. Great, now they think I’m some idiot who can’t even ride in a carriage properly.

“If this place has seen enough carriage traffic to leave ruts in the ground, then clearly the high road’s been impassable for quite a while,” Reggie mused as he glanced out the window.

“I’d wager you’re correct,” Alan agreed. “This land belongs to... the House of Bertrand, I believe? You’d think they’d do something about this.”

“Perhaps they don’t much care, since nobles never need to pass through this area.”

“Unfortunately, we’re not in much of a position to tell them to get their act together.”

“Agreed.”

I sat next to Reggie, gazing out the window as the others talked politics. In my past life, I only ever saw this scenery from a bird’s-eye perspective during battles, or maybe the occasional animated cutscene, but now here it was, replicated right before my eyes.

Naturally, reality was not exactly the same as the in-game artwork; here in real life, there were piles of dead leaves and strands of withered ivy all over the place. Some sort of small animal skittered out of sight—was that a squirrel? The smallest glimpse of wildlife drove home the fact that yes, this was the real world.

As I stared vacantly out the window, I noticed one of the knights on horseback had turned to look behind us, so I followed his line of sight. And although I couldn’t get a good look from inside the carriage, I could tell that sure enough, someone was following us. Then the carriage came to a stop, and everyone realized that something was wrong.

“What’s going on?” asked Alan, frowning.

“It looks like someone’s flagged us down,” I told him.

His expression hardened further. “They’ve hailed our carriage?”

He moved to the front seat and lifted it up, revealing a cavity perhaps intended for luggage storage. He reached in and felt around for something, then lifted out a wooden board—the bottom of the storage space—transforming the cavity into a passage leading under the carriage.

“We should take every precaution. Kiara, Reggie, I want you to climb out through here and steal away deeper into the forest.”

“As long as you come for us afterward,” Reggie replied casually. Limber like a cat, he easily slid down through the passage.

I didn’t quite see why Alan wanted the two of us to do this, but since it was an emergency, I obeyed nonetheless.

As my feet hit the ground, I realized that this was yet another opportunity for Reggie to see my bloomers. After all, my skirt was too bulky to fit through the passage without sliding up a bit. Fortunately, Reggie didn’t even spare me a passing glance; he was crouched down low, keeping tabs on the situation unfolding around us. Relieved, I crept up beside him.

There wasn’t much room under the carriage, so we were both in a sort of crawling position, and our only view was that of knights’ boots and horses’ hooves. We could, however, hear their conversation with perfect clarity.

“As I said, I felt perhaps you might have given shelter to our lost heiress.”

“If we had, we would have sent word of it to the family. And yet you wish to check for yourself? Do you doubt my word, you cur?”

There was heat in Wentworth’s tone, and the other person seemed to flinch in the face of it. Wentworth was fairly young, but his height and stoic countenance afforded him an intimidating presence. Plus, talking to him for too long always made my neck hurt.

“No, not at all! But as we understand it, your carriages departed the same school on the very same day, so we wondered if perhaps the young master might have seen her.”

“I’m not going to waste Lord Alan’s time with this nonsense. Besides, we were right there with him the entire time. If he’d seen her, surely we would have as well.”

“But you cannot claim to have searched the entire school grounds, correct? Please, this is very important. Our heiress is to wed Lord Credias, relative of the queen, and the ceremony is fast approaching.”

A chill shot down my spine. Despite his polite language, this other man still managed to weave a tiny threat into his statement: if something were to upset the queen, the House of Évrard might well lose their territory.

But Wentworth didn’t back down. “What a coincidence. As it happens, the House of Évrard has familial ties with the king.”

This was true, of course. Alan’s mother, the margravine, was the king’s older sister, and as such, Alan was in line to potentially inherit the throne. As such, the House of Évrard outranked the House of Credias. Still, no one in their right mind would be eager to offend the queen.

Just as I was starting to worry for Wentworth, I heard the carriage door open, followed by Alan’s voice.

“Wentworth! What’s going on out there? Why have we stopped?”

“My apologies, milord. This man claims to hail from the House of Patriciél. Presently, he accuses us of absconding with their young heiress.”

“I beg your pardon? You’d better have good reason to make such spurious claims, lest you sorely regret it, you swine.”

But Alan’s self-important swagger seemed to have no effect on the servant of Patriciél.

“I am certainly not accusing you, milord. We simply believe it is possible she has accompanied you without your knowledge. Thus, we humbly request permission to view the interior of your carriages.”

As they spoke, Reggie tugged on my sleeve. I glanced over to find that a knight was crouched down by the carriage, waving us over—evidently, the servant of Patriciél couldn’t see him from that angle. Careful not to make a sound, Reggie and I crept over to the knight. There, we crawled out from under the carriage, and he indicated for us to head deeper into the forest. It seemed he wanted us to conceal ourselves in there for the time being.

Meanwhile, the servant of Patriciél started his search of the carriages. Alan had closed the curtains on the window that faced the forest, so now was our only chance to make a getaway! We slipped deeper into the shadows of the trees and concealed ourselves in a nearby shrub.

Whew... Now we’re safe.

Just then, I felt a zap of static shock against my fingertips. Startled, I whipped my head around to find a single infant zapgrass, struggling to pull its roots out of the ground. Once it had finally freed itself, it started to move toward me. Gods, no! Moving entirely on impulse, I reached out, snatched it up, and flung it as far as I could. Sorry!

Apparently, the incident in the meadow had had something of a traumatic effect on me.

Reggie stared at me in wide-eyed shock as the little zapgrass traced a perfect arc through the sky... and landed right next to the carriages. Upon impact, it began to crackle angrily; this, in turn, roused all the other zapgrasses resting quietly nearby. And as the static sparks grew louder, the horses grew restless once again.

With a whinny, they reared and took off running, their riders shouting in alarm. I heard a scream from inside one of the carriages, but I could tell it wasn’t Alan, so I wasn’t too worried. Once the carriages took off at the speed of light, all that remained was Wentworth, his horse, and another riderless horse frightened out of its wits.

Wentworth promptly rode into the forest. “Are you there, Your Grace?”

“Right here, Wentworth,” Reggie replied as he rose to his feet.

“My deepest apologies, but for the time being, I’ll need you to travel along the outskirts of the forest. I’ll leave my sword here for you. Once we’ve got the carriages taken care of, I’ll send someone to collect you. Until then, stay within the bounds of the trees.”

“Understood. With a party of so few, the servant is likely to notice your absence in short order, and we don’t want to raise his suspicions.”

“As you command, sire.”

Wentworth untied his sword from his horse, dropped it to the ground, and set off at once. Reggie walked over, picked it up, and slid it easily into the sheath affixed to his waist-cord. Evidently, he was used to handling a blade.

“Why did you stay behind?” I asked, puzzled. Everyone seemed to care about his safety a great deal, and yet they’d left him without any bodyguards.

He returned to my side, smiling brightly. “Because unlike you, I can defend myself. Besides, we couldn’t possibly abandon a lone girl in the forest, now could we?”

Frankly, this didn’t feel like an answer to my question. Supposing they had left me behind, where was the issue in doing so? Why would they be so hospitable to a “commoner” servant? Plus, they’d gone to all this trouble in the name of concealing me. Sure, maybe they were just looking to avoid causing a scandal, but in that case, why have Reggie sneak out with me?

I stared up at him, scrutinizing his face.

Back at the boarding school, I had seen him enter the building with Alan, so he seemingly had no problem showing himself to fellow teenagers. Was there a reason he ought to avoid a fully-grown manservant of a noble house?

Our boarding school was not one children attended out of some obligation. Among other reasons, oftentimes they went because their parents wanted them to foster connections to (or find marriage partners within) other noble houses; the (admittedly scant few) mixed-gender classes existed for that purpose. Someone who had no need of such a thing wouldn’t bother enrolling their child at all.

Maybe he—

“Aaah!”

Out of nowhere, Reggie covered my eyes with his hands, derailing my train of thought entirely.

“What’s got you so lost in thought? The longer we dawdle in one place, the more likely the beasts will find us. Let’s get moving, hmm?”

He pulled his hands away from my eyes, then grabbed me by the wrist and set off walking. For some reason, the warmth of his hand against my skin made me a little nervous. It wasn’t the first time he’d done so, of course—lest I remind you of the Bed Tumble incident—but perhaps I was more self-conscious now that he’d just touched my face as well.

I-I’m onto you, mister! I thought to myself, then did my best to clear my mind. If I had to guess, he’d probably noticed me staring and startled me on purpose to keep me from making any unwanted discoveries. Unfortunately for him, however, I was already convinced my hypothesis was right, and no amount of surprise would make me forget.

Unless I was mistaken, Reggie was almost certainly a member of nobility. Judging from the way Alan and the others treated him, he was no mere attendant; rather, he was simply content to play the part. But for the life of me, I couldn’t remember Game-Alan having any nobleman friends his age. Parts of my memory were too fuzzy.

In my past life, I didn’t bother to stop and notice the small details; I was too focused on beating the game as quickly as possible. I could remember the main plot points, who I put in my party, and even where I placed my knights, but everything else was a total blur. I must have skipped through more than half the dialogue in the entire game—anything to get to the next battle that much faster.

As far as I could recall, Game-Alan’s allies were mainly middle-aged men or world-weary young adults...

While the gears turned in my head, Reggie led me a bit further into the forest, probably to ensure we couldn’t be seen from the road. And we couldn’t risk being caught out in the open in the event the servant of Patriciél decided to retrace his steps back here. Thus, I followed along without complaint.

This was one of the few times in my life that I’d ever walked through a forest. I’d gone hiking in my past life, sure, but now I lived in a world where electric grass was a thing I had to worry about.

Fortunately, someone like me was in good hands with a knowledgeable guy like Reggie as my guide. At one point I spotted a peculiar plant; right as I touched it, however, Reggie yanked hard on my wrist and dragged me away at the speed of light.

“Why... would you try... to touch something... when you don’t know... if it’s safe?!” he panted, once we had put a safe distance between ourselves and the plant.

“I-I’m sorry...”

The plant in question was wrapped around a tree like ivy, with grape-like fruits hanging from it. Truth be told, I had been lured in by the sweet, mouthwatering smell. Thankfully, Reggie noticed just in time and pulled me back right as the “grapes” burst open, emitting a strange purple gas.

“That gas... is toxic. Not lethal, but... it makes your body numb.”

“Yikes.” That sounded like a perfect recipe to end up as some predator’s dinner. “Th-Thanks for saving my bacon,” I stammered through gasps for air. Ever since we first met, it felt like I’d done nothing but apologize over one thing or another.

“Just be more careful next time,” he sighed.

He could have criticized me for being stupid, or called me a burden, but instead he forgave me. Now, if the count was here, he would’ve thrown whatever was on hand at the time and shouted something like “If you want to keep living in the lap of luxury, then you’d better start listening to me!”

After all that running, plus the copious amounts of screaming, my throat was parched. Right as I wished I had some water, however, I heard a familiar crackle and glanced around.

“Are there zapgrasses in the forest, too?”

Reggie scanned our surroundings; evidently he’d heard it, too. His eyes must have been sharper than mine, however, because he spotted the source right away.

“Over there.”

Hand in hand, we moved in the direction of the sound. There, we found...

“Water!”

There was a slight depression in the earth that served as the basin for a waterfall trickling down over the rocks. And for some reason, a large group of zapgrasses was huddled in a semicircle around the water. It was kind of cute, actually.

“Oh, I get it. The population is outpacing the size of their territory, so they’re trying to expand.”

“Wait, what? So they’re going to start chopping down trees, or what?”

To me, it just looked like they were having a good time.

“First, they start by locating a water source. Then they build a community around it. And as their numbers increase, they’ll start scorching the trees to bring in more sunlight. That’s how they cultivate their habitat, or so I’m told. Admittedly, this is my first time seeing it in person.”

“But if they started burning trees in the middle of a forest, wouldn’t they run the risk of causing a forest fire? You’d think they’d know better than to endanger themselves like that.”

I knew they did their scorching with electricity, not actual fire, but still—those burns would retain heat, deep in the ashes. If the scorched tree toppled over onto something flammable, like dead grass or leaves, it could very well catch fire.

“That’s partly what the water’s for. They spray it around at regular intervals in order to use it as a fire retardant. That said, it’s not always a hundred percent effective. And on the off chance a fire does break out, yes, the zapgrasses will go up in flames with it.”

Sounds like risky business. Poor little things.

“When you think about it, they’re destroying the habitat for the other animals, aren’t they?”

“Mm-hmm,” Reggie replied offhandedly.

“In that case, we should probably get them out of here.”

He blinked at me in surprise. “How? If I attack them with the sword, their electricity will make my hand go numb.”

I giggled mischievously. Well, we’ve got some electricity, and we’ve got some water... I think it’s time for a little science experiment.

If all went according to plan, we’d have access to a whole waterfall of fresh spring water, no boiling necessary—and I was very, very thirsty.

First order of business: locate a large rock. The first one I found was light enough that I could carry it, but it was covered in moss, so I decided to keep looking. The next rock I found was smaller than the first, but its surface was nice and dry. Then I tied some ivy around it—plump and soft, but still firm enough that it could keep the rock suspended without tearing.

With the rock in my arms, I approached a tree near the waterfall. The zapgrasses noticed me approaching and crackled aggressively to keep me at bay, but otherwise stayed put. Holding tight to one end of the ivy, I started swinging the rock over my head like a lasso. And when I let go, the momentum carried it all the way into the basin with a tremendous SPLASH, spraying all the zapgrasses.

“That was perhaps... a bit more effective than I was expecting.”

The waterfall basin was now surrounded by the ashen corpses of the zapgrass herd; they fell apart like charcoal at the slightest touch. The water exposure had turned their bodies into conduits for their electricity, frying them from the inside out. Reflexively, I pressed my hands together in prayer.

“Rest in peace, little ones.”

Once they were safely on their way to the afterlife, I reached out and scooped up some of that sweet, sweet spring water. Ahhh, cold and refreshing.

“Want some water?” I asked Reggie. But when I turned back to look at him, I found him staring at me—not in confusion, but sheer disbelief. For a moment he didn’t respond to my question... but then he finally let out a chuckle. This laughter persisted even after he’d drunk his fill.

“You said the count adopted you, right? Were you born to commoners, then? Daughter of a knight, perhaps?” he asked me once he’d settled down.

Evidently, my behavior was deemed ill-fitting of a true noble. But I had no reason to hide my past from him, so I decided to be honest.

“Baronet, actually. We were commoners in all but name.”

“But you owned some land, at least?”

When it came to landed nobility, those with the title of baronet were at the very bottom of the totem pole. Similar to the way a wealthy magnate might pay to have a sports dome or other facility named in their honor, baronets received their titles in exchange for money donated to the royal coffers.

“Technically yes, but we’d been selling it off in chunks for years and years. That said, it didn’t seem like we were doing it out of necessity, but I can’t say for sure.” After all, it was all just hearsay and conjecture.

If we were truly that poor, then surely we would have laid off our servants or stopped buying silk gowns every season. Instead, our decline was gradual, with one fewer servant every six months or so. Hence, they’d been more than happy to sell me off to a noble.

“Is Kiara your birth name?”

“It is. Supposedly it was given to me by my mother, but she passed away before I learned to read or write.”

Seeing as Reggie was so interested in me all of a sudden, I decided now was as good a time as any for a little break. I sat down on a dry, weathered log, and Reggie took a seat right next to me. Internally, I bristled. After all, we were both teenagers; didn’t he feel even the slightest bit shy, sitting so close to a girl?

Then again, in my current life, I’d barely had any social interaction with boys my own age. My stepmother had kept me locked up in the house in my early years, and after the count adopted me, he kept me far away from any of the servants. Even when I was enrolled in boarding school, almost everyone I interacted with was female. There were no coed parties or anything of the sort.

You know, after everything I’ve been through, it’s a miracle I didn’t end up with PTSD. Maybe I have my otherworld memories to thank for that.

“You haven’t told us much about your birth family. Your late mother aside, I suppose the rest of them weren’t very good to you, were they?”

Somehow, Reggie was able to read between the lines with perfect clarity. It was a relief, actually, to hear him describe my home life with such unflattering honesty. After all, the majority of people were firmly convinced that all families loved each other deep down, and they refused to accept the possibility that there were exceptions to the rule.

Even the nobles who were raised predominantly by their nannies were still somehow under the conception that families always “do what’s best for you”—that their love was unconditional. And they were downright desperate to avoid having to challenge this belief. I’m sure your father loves you, they’d all say. After all, you’re his daughter. Nothing can break those familial ties.

Naturally, I was expecting Reggie to say something along the same lines, but he didn’t. That said, while this came as a refreshing change, I couldn’t help but think that perhaps there was a reason he understood me as well as he did...

“You must have some unkind family members of your own, don’t you, Reggie?” I asked.

He smiled softly. “It’s nice to find someone who understands what it’s like.”

Just like that, it felt as though the two of us had forged a real connection. He was quite possibly the only person I’d ever met who could comprehend the trauma of my past. Not that I knew for sure if he felt the same way, of course, but still...

“I’d like to hear more about you, if you wouldn’t mind.”

I got the sense that he cared about me, even just a little.

But right in the middle of this touching little moment...

“Oh dear. Perhaps I shouldn’t have interrupted.”

Out of nowhere, a figure appeared on the other side of the waterfall basin—a small girl with glossy silver hair that hung straight down to her hips. She wore a dark red robe that descended to her ankles, and her violet eyes sparkled like jewels. I swallowed hard as her pale pink lips twitched upon the porcelain canvas of her countenance.

I hadn’t even heard her approaching.

“Those grasses have been a real pain in my neck, trying to invade my forest,” she explained casually, as though we were old friends catching up. “I don’t care if they’ve overpopulated the meadow! I can’t have them burning up all my trees—or my pets, for that matter!”

I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. I blinked—once, twice, three times. But she was still standing there.

“The Thorn Princess...”

Indeed, it was she. After all, who else could possibly retain such a flawless air of dignity, living alone in a forest? I never gave it much thought in my past life, but now that I could smell the musk of dead leaves, her presence here was a jarring mismatch.

The more I looked at her, the more I dearly wished I could reapply my makeup, or at least brush my hair. God knows it was still filthy from the time I got thrown out of the carriage. Fortunately, my black school uniform concealed dirt stains fairly well, but there were still dead leaves stuck to my skirt. I hastily brushed myself off.

Meanwhile, the Thorn Princess looked at me in surprise. What?

“You know of me?” she asked.

Then, finally, I understood. Clearly she wasn’t expecting a total stranger such as myself to know her name. Thinking quickly, I blurted out the first excuse that came to mind.

“W-Well, I heard that the Thorn Princess dwells in this forest... and you kinda showed up out of nowhere, so I just assumed...”

“Hmm? From the way you looked at me, I was sure you recognized my face.”

“No, no, not at all!”

Judging from the look on her face, she wasn’t completely convinced... but at the very least, she didn’t press further. Perhaps she decided it would be strange for me to recognize her, seeing as we had never met.

Then she glanced from me to Reggie and sucked in a breath.

Oh crap! He’s outside her preferred age range!

“Hey, uh, just so you know, he’s only twelve! He’s just really tall for his age!”

Unsurprisingly, Reggie shot me a look that said, What on earth are you talking about?

I tried my best to reply with my eyes. Look, I know it’s weird, okay?! But you saved my life, so I can’t have her throwing you out of the forest!

The Thorn Princess stared at me for a long, calculating moment. “You do know me from somewhere, don’t you?”

I flinched. Crap, that’s right! No one in this world is supposed to know that she likes watching little boys!

“No, I really don’t! I just... surmised as much from the rumors, that’s all!”

“What sort of rumors?”

“Well, they say you only allow women and young children into your forest, so I figured you must not be a fan of teenage boys, am I right? Hahahaha...”

I laughed uneasily. Unfortunately, this did little to resolve the situation.

“So you assumed the mere sight of this boy would fill me with rage? Is that why you specified that he was twelve?”

“Well, any older and it wouldn’t technically count as pedo—I mean, I was just concerned that you might mistake him for older than he really is! He gets that a lot, you know!”

As I scrambled for a plausible excuse, the Thorn Princess gazed at me for another long moment. Then, slowly, her lips curled in a faint smile.

“I see... Now I understand.”

My heart nearly stopped. Her sinister expression was made all the more terrifying by her youthful appearance.

“Very well. Anyway, I came to say thank you for exterminating those zapgrasses; you’ve saved me some time and effort. So, are you trying to get through the forest?”

Apparently, my actions had inadvertently won her favor.

“Well, you see, we’ve... been separated from our group, I guess? But there’s a man with them that we’d really rather avoid, so we’re traveling separately for now... and we have to stay within the bounds of the forest so he can’t spot us.”

“Are you really the Thorn Princess?” Reggie asked suddenly, and I tensed up, fearful that his deep, masculine voice would provoke her anger.

“Indeed, I have been watching over this nation since its founding,” she answered quietly, still smiling. “Does my childlike form give you pause? Rest assured, it is only a guise. One I have worn for centuries.”

As it turned out, the Thorn Princess was surprisingly affable. Had she bought my claim that Reggie was only twelve? Puzzled as I was, I decided it would be best to let sleeping dogs lie. It was time for us to go our separate ways.

“Well, we’re in a bit of a hurry, so we’ll be going now!”

With my otherworld memories in the forefront of my mind, I bowed to her in proper Japanese fashion before turning to leave.

“When you say ‘your group,’ are you referring to the two vehicles about a hundred mers ahead? Passenger carriage and luggage carriage, right?”

“Huh? How did you know that?”

She snickered. “I see all that approaches my forest. That is how I deal with ruffians who would lay waste to my home.”

I pictured a giant home security camera peeking through the trees, surveilling all visitors. Naturally, home security didn’t exist in this world, and so Reggie was rather taken aback.

“You know everything that happens here?”

“Of course. What of it?” she replied offhandedly. “I can see outside the forest, too. I know what sort of person the king has married, I know of her homeland, and I know exactly what will happen to the people living in the castle town. I wouldn’t mind telling you, of course... for a price.”

Reggie’s expression grew tense, though I didn’t understand why. Was it something she said?

“Well, uh, we’d better be on our way!”

Somehow I got the feeling I needed to separate these two ASAP. I gave Reggie a little push, and he seemed to snap back to his senses. With a stiff smile, he waved goodbye and walked off. But before I could follow...

“Just a moment, you.”

Her cold fingers brushed my hand. Startled, I whirled around to find her standing right next to me. What the... She can teleport?!

“What’s your name?” she asked.

“K-Kiara,” I replied hastily.

The Thorn Princess held out a necklace and pressed it into my palm. Attached to the chain was a small, round pendant made of what looked like red frosted glass mixed with a darker, more sinister color at the edges. If someone had told me this item was cursed, I would have believed them.

“This is a special gift just for you. Don’t lose it... or else.”

“What?!”

Why are you giving me this terrifying object?! Now it DEFINITELY sounds cursed! I don’t want this!

At the same time, if I tried to give it back, I had a feeling she would get angry and trap me in the forest with her brambles.

After a moment of hesitation, I awkwardly accepted the necklace, then got out of there as fast as my legs could carry me. At the time, I didn’t understand why she wanted me to have it.

I wouldn’t learn the truth until two years later.

◇◇◇

Later that day, Reggie and I safely reunited with the rest of our traveling party. Once we were seated back in the passenger carriage, Reggie asked Alan what we’d missed while we were gone.

“Tell me, did you give that servant the slip? Or dump his body in a ditch, perhaps?” The silver-haired boy grinned, his tone light and conversational.

As for Alan, he didn’t even bat an eye. “I was rather hoping he might fall out of the carriage, seeing as the door was still open when we took off, but alas. On the bright side, it meant he had to walk all the way back on foot to retrieve his horse. Fortunately, he seemed convinced Kiara wasn’t with us, but I admit I was terrified that he might cross paths with you two during his search.”

Reggie nodded cheerfully. “Understandable! As for us, we had ourselves a peaceful little nature walk. I imagine the man was too distracted by the commotion to look too closely at the forest.”

“What made the zapgrasses go off like that, anyway?”

At this, I raised my hand to answer. “Oh, um... because I threw one of them, probably.”

Alan stared at me. “You threw one?! It didn’t burn you, did it?!”

“It did zap me a little, but it didn’t really hurt tha—whoa!”

Out of nowhere, he leaned forward and seized my hands in his. Once he finished scrutinizing my palms, he let go with a sigh of relief.

“Sure enough, you seem completely unscathed.”

“It was a reflexive reaction to get it away from me, that’s all. And it was just a baby anyway.”

“In case you’ve forgotten, you’re a young lady. We can’t have you scarring up your body,” he declared firmly.

I faltered. Rrgh, you stupid protagonist! A minor NPC like me doesn’t stand a chance against your chivalry!

Instead, I stared at the floor. “Right.”

Gallant as he was, I couldn’t foresee myself falling in love with him, possibly because of all the times I had Game-Alan kill Game-Kiara in my past life... or because I was afraid I might still die at his hand here in the real world.

Meanwhile, Alan turned back to Reggie. “So, what took you two so long?”

“Oh, well, we had a bit of a run-in with the Thorn Princess,” Reggie replied offhandedly.

“You what?!” Alan shrieked, nearly jumping to his feet. “Damn it, Reggie! You didn’t get yourself hurt, did you? I’ve heard stories of that witch whipping men to death with her thorny brambles!”

“Do I look dead? No? Then there you go.”

Alan shot him a dubious look, but didn’t press further. After all, it was obvious at a glance that Reggie was unharmed.

“I guess some rumors are wildly overblown,” Alan muttered. “So, what was she like?”

“Well, she looked like a tiny little girl, maybe a few years younger than us. But she claimed to be much, much older.”

Evidently, Alan’s interest had shifted to the Thorn Princess.

As the conversation continued, before we knew it, we had arrived at our stopover for the night.

◇◇◇

The rest of our journey was entirely uneventful, with no signs of any other pursuers. Five days later, we had finally crossed into Évrard territory... and two days after that, the margrave’s castle came into view, situated atop a distant hill. Its walls were tall and sturdy, like a fortress—quite fitting for a noble house tasked with border patrol.

At the bottom of the hill was a vast, sprawling forest. Judging from the size of the trees, I could roughly estimate the size of the forest itself, and from there I determined that the castle grounds were fairly expansive as well.

This was the place where Alan was born, and where countless battles had been fought.

“Now that you’ll be serving at our estate, there are some things you’ll need to know,” Alan announced.

From there, he explained the margraviate’s current state of affairs.

The province of Évrard shared a border with Llewyne to the east, as well as the kingdom of Salekhard to the north. Due to frequent international scuffles, the king had appointed the margrave to the post of army general. Thus, any time there was an emergency, he was free to request backup from neighboring territories and subsequently take command of those armies.

As it turned out, Alan had returned home from school not in response to an emergency situation, but rather the lack thereof.

Until recently, Évrard had struggled with a group of bandits sneaking over from Llewyne. At one point, the ruffians had set fire to a mansion outside the castle grounds, and things were looking rather unsafe for the residents. Because the bandits were few in number and traveled separately, Évrard soldiers had had a hell of a time tracking them down.

Some feared that these criminals were in fact scouts sent by Llewyne forces. Because of the safety risk this posed to the family, Alan had been “evacuated” to the boarding school on the other side of the country.

“Not because I’m weak or anything, mind you! They just didn’t want the whole family cooped up in one place. You know, in the event of a tragedy,” Alan clarified, and I got the sense he resented being whisked away from his home. Whatever you say, buddy. I was tempted to explain to him that his parents were just worried for his safety, but I didn’t want to risk upsetting him.

Looking back, he had always been the hot-headed sort of protagonist. Fighting was his solution to everything—in the RPG, anyway. Then again, that was the whole point of playing the game in the first place.

Just then, I remembered how Alan’s father had died in the prologue. The castle had been attacked, and Alan was only spared because he was elsewhere at the time...

Wait, what?

It felt like I was on the cusp of a breakthrough about something... but I couldn’t exactly tune Alan out, so I decided to revisit the subject at a later time.

“To be clear, it’s my understanding that they’ve captured all the bandits, so there shouldn’t be an issue. Still, be on guard if ever you’re asked to leave the castle grounds. Setting aside the situation with Lord Patriciél, Llewyne is just a stone’s throw away from here. Danger could be anywhere.”

“Understood,” I nodded.

Next, Alan told me about his mother. She was the elder sister of the king, a fact I already knew, and she patrolled the border almost every day. Wait... So the margravine is a soldier, too?!

When he told me his mother might ask me to accompany her around the territory, I paled. Then Reggie explained how the margravine might need to keep me close at hand to supervise me, since I was a daughter of nobility. Oh god, I don’t think I have the physical endurance for that!

“Can’t I serve her from inside the castle?” I asked in a small voice.

“Yeah... I don’t think you’re athletic enough to serve as an attendant,” Alan mused. Why would an attendant need to be athletic at all?!

While I agonized over my future employment, we pulled up to the castle gates.

As it turned out, the stone walls were a lot more rugged than they were depicted in-game. The gates slowly opened to reveal a plot of land large enough for perhaps a thousand people to run around freely, and on the other end of that space was the margrave’s castle, with towers and everything. Standing between us and the castle was a large group of people—here to welcome the young master, if I had to guess.

On each side of the walkway was a row of servants, their uniforms so gray and drab that they threatened to blend in with the castle walls. In the center stood a middle-aged man in a dark green coat, his hair and facial features a perfect match for his son’s, give or take the age gap. Yes, this was almost certainly Margrave Vayne Évrard in the flesh.

Next to the margrave was a silver-haired woman in a modest yellow-green dress: Margravine Beatrice Évrard, elder sister to the king of Farzia. Behind her stood two female attendants, both older than me by the looks of it, as well as tall and... carrying swords?! I couldn’t be sure if they were hired for their skills or trained on the job, but either way, I could see that everything Alan had told me about his mother was indeed the truth. Lady Évrard was smaller in stature compared to her husband, but she had the athletic build of a runner.

As the carriages came to a stop, the knights helped Alan, Reggie, and I deboard. I positioned myself behind Alan, content to wait quietly until I was addressed directly. Just then, Reggie walked in front of Alan for some reason... and the entire welcoming party bent the knee in genuflection.

“We’re so glad to have you back safe and sound, Your Highness.”

Why is the margrave kneeling?! And what do you mean, “Your Highness”?!

“Thank you for tolerating my selfish demands, my good man,” Reggie replied as if this were the most commonplace event in the world. “I should like to remain at your castle for a bit longer.”

My jaw dropped. He was clearly speaking to the margrave as his superior! Then Wentworth leaned forward and whispered in my ear.

“Didn’t anyone tell you?”

“Tell me what?!” I hissed back.

Wentworth fixed me with a sympathetic look. “The ‘Reggie’ you’ve been traveling with? That’s His Highness Prince Reginald of Farzia.”

I clapped both hands over my open mouth to muffle the scream that was clawing its way up my throat.

Then something else floated to the forefront of my mind: images of the RPG’s opening cutscene, the margrave’s castle in ruins, the ground scattered with corpses. Among the bodies was one of Alan’s dearest friends: Prince Reginald, who had come as a representative of Farzia to hold a conference with the kingdom of Salekhard to discuss their current crisis. The margrave died shielding the prince from a blow, while His Highness died from an arrow to the back. Plus, he did have silver hair in the game...

Meanwhile, the real “Prince Reginald” was smirking at me over his shoulder, openly savoring my utter shock. He probably avoided telling me on purpose so he could make me look like an idiot in front of everyone, and if I was going to play along, this is the part where I would scowl and pout... but I was too distracted by the horrible things I’d just remembered.

Reggie, the friend I’d made over the course of our long journey, the boy currently grinning at me like a smug jerk, was fated to lose his life at an early age. Was there anything I could possibly do about it?

The game’s opening cinematic was only two or three minutes long at most. It started with an overview of Farzia as a whole, then zoomed in on the battle at Évrard Castle to set the tone for the plot. There, the soldiers were overrun, the gates were destroyed, and the enemy soldiers charged in. There was a brief shot of the prince and the margrave fighting side by side, but this was quickly followed by their death scene. Then Alan turned up—just a moment too late to save them.

None of that sounded like something I could prevent.

Alan was only spared because he had gone off to lead an army against what turned out to be a diversionary attack. Having lost both his father and his friends, he would fight to reclaim Farzia while simultaneously seeking revenge against Llewyne. And Reggie was among those friends he lost.

Could I somehow keep Reggie from visiting during that time? I thought about it for a moment, but quickly decided it was impossible. After all, the whole purpose of his visit was to represent Farzia in a conference with another kingdom; no one else could possibly take his place. It was all a careful ploy by the nation of Llewyne.

In that case, could I have Reggie leave the castle with Alan somehow? No, surely the margrave would never permit the prince of Farzia to join his son’s army. If anything, that might put Alan at greater risk, since the prince would be comparatively more accessible on the battlefield. And if they both died, then it truly was “game over” for our country.

Terror gripped me as I realized there was nothing I could do to stop these deaths from happening.

“Kiara?” Reggie called, sounding concerned.

“Oh, um, sorry!”

When I snapped back to my senses, I found that everyone was staring at me. A cold sweat dripped down my back. Had someone asked me a question while I was distracted? None of them seemed especially angry with me... Hopefully I hadn’t let the silence linger for too terribly long. Whew. Now to focus on reality for a while.

“Who is this girl, Your Highness?”

“We picked her up during our journey. On that note, there’s something I’d like to discuss with you, Margrave,” Reggie explained, flicking his eyes in the direction of the castle—a silent suggestion to move this party indoors. His Lordship seemed to pick up on this, because he turned and led us all into the castle.

There, we entered one of the towers in the far corner of the building and began to climb the stairs. Once we reached the third floor, the murmurs of the people below us grew faint, and with nothing but empty air directly outside the windows, the risk of eavesdroppers was greatly reduced. The remaining chance was then eliminated with a single guard posted outside the door.

We all crammed ourselves into the small room at the top of the tower: Lord and Lady Évrard, Alan, Reggie, Wentworth, and myself.

“I take it there are some... sensitive circumstances?” asked His Lordship.

Reggie and Alan both nodded.

“She’s the adopted daughter of Lord Patriciél,” Reggie explained.

The margrave furrowed his brow, probably because the House of Évrard wasn’t on especially good terms with the count.

“Then why bring her here?”

“She seeks to escape a marriage with Lord Credias... and as it happens, we have proof of such an engagement. Furthermore, Patriciél anticipated her opposition and laced his correspondence with a sleeping-draught. By the time we found her, she was completely sedated.”

“You’re certain of that fact?” His Lordship asked.

Alan, Reggie, and Wentworth all looked away awkwardly. Embarrassed, I stared at the floor.

“Is it alright with you if I tell him?” Reggie asked me. Truth be told, I wasn’t enthusiastic about the prospect, but if it meant the margrave would be convinced of my innocence, then I would just have to bite back my tears.

“Kiara here boarded Alan’s luggage carriage in order to escape the boarding school. We believe the sedative kicked in shortly thereafter, because when we found her, no amount of shouting or shaking would rouse her. Frankly, we only discovered her because she was talking in her sleep.”

“She was sleep-talking?”

Reggie nodded solemnly. “She didn’t wake up until nearly noon the next day, and without realizing she was drugged, she immediately offered her apologies as well as travel fare. But when she rose to retrieve her wallet, her legs were completely numb, and she fell to the floor.”

Mortified, I clutched my skirt in my fists until my knuckles went white. Still, this conversation directly pertained to my immediate future, so I needed to pay attention to the margrave’s reaction. Summoning all my courage, I snuck a glance in His Lordship’s direction... and found him looking at me with the utmost pity in his eyes.

“Is this true, Wentworth?”

“Unfortunately, yes. I witnessed the entire thing, and it all happened exactly as His Highness says. Furthermore, as we were hailed by a man who claimed to serve the count, it’s safe to say he is, in fact, looking for her.”

Lord Évrard let out a heavy sigh. “So you decided to take this disa—distressed young lady with you, did you?”

Was he about to call me a disappointment? No, it’s fine. I don’t care if he insults me. I would endure anything if it meant he would trust me.

Behind him, Lady Évrard stood with her lips pursed... though the corners of her mouth were twitching. She’s suppressing a laugh, isn’t she? Ugh, fine. Better than her deciding she hates me. Are ALL nobles a bunch of gigglers like Reggie? Is this aristocratic culture?

Meanwhile, Alan tried to spin the whole thing as a positive development. “Call it an act of charity if you will, but the thought of leaving this young girl to her fate made me sick to my stomach. She says she has no love for her adoptive father, and she doesn’t care if we treat her as a commoner, so... I was thinking we might employ her here at the castle.”

“Take her in as a servant?” Lord Évrard mused. “Are you sure you can tolerate such indignity, my lady?”

“Oh, yes, absolutely! My birth father was a mere baronet, you see, and his second wife gave me maids’ tasks all the time. I can cook, clean, peel potatoes, you name it!”

I tried to keep my tone as cheery as possible, but Wentworth and the Évrards all looked at me with sympathy nonetheless. Almost like they were seated in the audience at a Shakespearean tragedy. Sorry... I guess my history IS pretty depressing.

Truth be told, I didn’t really want the Évrards to know my dark past. They seemed like a normal, loving family, and I knew it would pain them to learn of my suffering. But I couldn’t very well lie to them, and if I wanted to ensure I wouldn’t end up dead or an enemy of the state, then I was better off staying here. Especially if I wanted to try to keep Reggie and Alan alive!

In order to achieve that, however, I would need to find a way to change Reggie’s fate. The most feasible idea I could think of would be to change classes to a spellcaster like Game-Kiara, except... you know... not an enemy character. Maybe then I could help fight off the invading troops.

How, then, would I go about making myself into a spellcaster? Frankly, I had no idea where to begin... but if I was going to look into it, it couldn’t hurt to have the backing of a noble house in my endeavors.

“Tell me, dear. Can you use a sword?” Lady Évrard asked me.

Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine someone would ask this of a delicate fourteen-year-old girl in the Farzian equivalent of a job interview. Coming from the margravine, however, I wasn’t that surprised. Her attendants from earlier definitely looked like they were hired for their brawn. Either way, the answer was no, so I shook my head.

“Any self-defense training?”

“My adoptive father wanted me to serve at the royal palace, so he taught me knife combat, but not much else.”

“I see.” Her Ladyship nodded, then touched her husband’s shoulder. “I want her to work for me.”

“As an attendant?”

“Mm-hmm. You remember how Ronat had to leave her post after she got married the other day? My other girls can handle the outdoor work, so I could use at least one with proper etiquette training.”

At this, Alan’s expression brightened, and Reggie’s smile deepened. Come to think of it, Reggie was the only one who didn’t grimace during my sob story. It was nice to have at least one person who could listen without wincing.

“So you’ll hire her?” Alan asked.

The margrave nodded. “I admit, my wife could certainly find a use for someone with a noble’s sensibilities, since we don’t get a lot of those out here. We’re happy to have you, Miss Kiara.”

“Thank you, Your Lordship,” I replied with a curtsy.

“That said, our territory serves as the cornerstone of Farzia’s border defense. As such, we’ll need to hone your running endurance so you can be prepared for any possible emergency situation,” Lady Évrard explained.

At this, my heart nearly stopped. This woman wanted me to exercise, and I was decidedly not the athletic type.

I really hope I’ll have time to research spellcasting...