Chapter 6: The True Protagonist

Chapter 6:
The True Protagonist

 

I KIND OF WANTED to punch past-Leon.

I’d talked all big, saying I’d help Olivia with her studies, but I hadn’t even checked her level first. Not that I could really be blamed for that—she was the one who claimed she could barely keep up!

And yet here we were…

“I don’t know what this part means,” she said. “Evidently, depending on the way you arrange the incantation, you can adapt the magic to…”

It was just the two of us studying in the library. Studying alone with a girl was supposed to be a bittersweet adolescent experience, one I’d naively anticipated. Now I had cold sweat pouring down my back.

Simply put, Olivia was smart.

“Uh, yeah. Basically that means…” I managed to combine knowledge from my previous life with what I’d gleaned from studying and wiggled my way through some kind of explanation.

Miraculously, she seemed impressed with my vague response. “Yes, I think you’re right!” She nodded. “So the textbook isn’t always accurate after all. I thought something was off about it because the official theories didn’t match my own intuitions. I’m glad I asked you about this.”

Crap. Now she was starting to point out errors in the textbook.

“W-well,” I stammered, “it’s not all wrong. I still think it’s important to read the fundamental texts.”

“You’re right, of course. About twenty percent of this book is incorrect, but that means eighty percent is still helpful.”

You could tell her book had seen a lot of use. Had she already finished reading through the whole thing? In just this one short term? There were still six months to go before the year was over! Even some of the nobles found our books so difficult they’d thrown them out altogether.

I kept up with my studies enough to pass the tests, but I couldn’t say I completely understood everything. I got thoroughly average scores in my magic classes.

I spent our study session praying for the clock to hurry along and end my misery. When our time was finally up, I said, “W-well, I guess we should end here today, since it’s already so late.”

“Oh, you’re right. It went by so fast.” Olivia smiled as if genuinely happy.

Fast? Each minute felt like an hour…

“Um, would you mind if we did this again next weekend?”

The way she peered up at me with those puppy dog eyes made me want to instantly answer, Sure, of course we can! But I wasn’t exactly eager to live through this all over again.

As I tried to think up some excuse to avoid a second round of agony, I suddenly remembered the most important objective I had at the academy: getting married! Crap, that was right! I was here to find a partner! What a twisted world this was that I could honestly say I wasn’t in school to learn.

“Sorry,” I managed, “but I have to spend my next weekend getting ready for another tea party.”

“Oh, no, um, I was the one asking you for a favor!” Olivia said, flustered. “You don’t have to apologize. I wasn’t thinking. Of course you’d be busy.”

Right. I was busy.

Seeing the dejected look on her face as she gathered up her notes and textbook made me feel a bit guilty. But I couldn’t forget my mission. I needed to find a wife with whom I could have a businesslike relationship. Though, I was at the very bottom of the caste system here. Those at the top were already fighting for the girls with good personalities. Even if one was still available, she would be worrying about her own home and future; she’d definitely be looking for someone of higher status than me.

Ahh, this world truly was a cruel one.

Wait. Wasn’t Japan kind of the same way?

“Anyway, thank you for your help today, Leon.” When Olivia smiled at me, her whole face seeming to shine. It was too bright for a rotten worm like me who’d lied his way out of another study session.

How embarrassing. If I took into account my life in Japan, I’d lived much longer than her, yet here I was, lying to save what little pride I still possessed.

Where was the closest hole I could crawl into?

 

***

 

Daniel, Raymond, and I were hanging out in my dorm room, sipping drinks and snacking. These weren’t at all the same kind of treats we prepared for the tea parties; they were high in fat and mostly fried. We even had soda, which, come to think of it, made this world feel pretty modern, actually. That went for the school uniforms, too. Probably because this was an otome game?

“Did you guys hear?” Daniel said, munching on fries. “Two of the rich first-years already got engaged. The girls are some of the nice ones, too—Milly and Jessica. Wish one of the lucky guys could’ve been me.”

Raymond clearly tried to keep a calm face even as Daniel sulked, but he still had a gloomy air. He actually looked like he might burst into tears at any moment. I couldn’t blame him; he had feelings for Milly.

“It’s only natural they’d go for guys with higher status than us. We never stood a chance.” Raymond paused. “Yeah, as long as Milly’s happy, that’s all that matters.”

I’d asked the two of them to come over knowing they were feeling blue. The wealthier men had a lot more to offer the women and had been very proactive. There hadn’t been much of an opening to mount a counter-attempt. Milly and Jessica were ideal partners, the top of their class, after all. Men were starting to quarrel over women of lesser quality.

Also, things just weren’t so bad for boys from families of earl rank or higher. Most of them already had partners picked out for them, as was the case with Prince Julius and Angelica.

Daniel downed his soda all at once. “There’s no hope left for me this year. The only girls left are witches!”

There were a lot of girls who looked down on men.

Raymond nodded. “We just had bad luck. I mean, we have Prince Julius and the rest of the elites in our year. Compared to them, we’re nothing.”

With handsome looks, social status, and tons of money, they were in a different league. We couldn’t even begin to measure up. What’s more, with their arranged marriages they no need to compete. No wonder they got to relax.

“Hey, Leon.” Daniel turned his concern on me. “Are things going well for you? You’ve been with that scholarship student this whole time, right? Have you given up on marriage?”

I sipped on my juice. “I haven’t given up. I’ve been sending out invitations, but all the girls are turning me down.”

“You’ll dig your own grave by being too sympathetic,” Raymond lectured. He pretended to be tough, but I knew he was worried about me. “You’ve been too fixated on the scholarship girl. That’s why the others won’t come near you. You should put some distance between you.”

Lucle had said the same thing. He’d even warned me that some upperclassmen had been forced to accept marriages with unfavorable conditions simply to avoid graduating without a partner—conditions like allowing their wives to have other lovers, even besides a demi-human servant. How demeaning. Essentially, I’ll give you an heir, but you have to financially support me and all my lovers.

Even worse, some women made these contracts with multiple men in succession and siphoned off as much money as they could while they lived the high life with their lovers. From their point of view, they were leaving heirs in their wake, so it was a fair trade.

Japan seemed like paradise in comparison.

“Leon,” Daniel said suddenly, “your older brother is in the general class, right?”

“Yeah.” I still wanted to drag Nicks along with me to the higher class, but I hadn’t found my fortune until after he was enrolled. A shame. I’d have liked for us to share this misery together.

“The girls in the general class aren’t bad,” Daniel went on, “but for some reason the girls in the higher class…”

It was true, the girls in the general class were mostly quite normal. They were still hard to appease when it came to marriage, or so I’d heard, but they were preferable to the girls we had to please. At the very least, they didn’t have slaves to wait on them.

In fact, only a certain window of women had slaves. It was frowned upon in earldom families and above, and commoners couldn’t afford them.

And here I was, stuck in that super-fun middle…

“You know,” I said, “when I heard my brother talk about all of this, I wanted to punch him in the face. I want to be in the general class, too,” I complained. “Then I wouldn’t have to suffer.”

Tears welled up in Raymond’s eyes. “Yeah! Why does getting married have to be so hard?”

I wondered what he and Daniel would think if I said, Because we’re in an otome game.

“By the way,” Raymond said, wiping his eyes, “have you guys heard all the fuss about Prince Julius lately?” He was probably trying to distract us from our woes.

“What about him?”

I continued nursing my drink as I listened. The prince and his cronies were far removed from the rest of us. I was curious enough to listen, but it was rather irrelevant to my life, outside of whatever Olivia got up to. Meanwhile, there always seemed to be drama going on with the prince. Had Marie triggered one of his special events from the game or something?

“Oh, I know what you’re talking about,” Daniel joined in. “Marie, wasn’t it? The other girls have been getting real nasty with her.”

Of course they were. It was only natural, when Marie kept cozying up to His Highness.

“They’re saying the bullies’ ringleader is the prince’s fiancée—that duke’s daughter. But he yelled at her and made her quit,” Raymond said. “The stories I’ve heard seem pretty credible. It might be legit.”

I choked on my drink.

“H-hey, are you okay?” Raymond reared back in surprise.

“Do you know something about this, Leon?” Daniel asked eagerly.

I shook my head, “Nah, it just went down the wrong pipe.” I wiped my mouth with a cloth, then dabbed at the cold sweat on my brow.

The event where the prince lashed out in anger at his fiancée was supposed to take place much later in the game. To make matters worse, while Olivia and I were close, I saw no signs of her bonding with any of the love interests.

What in the world was going on?

 

***

 

I hadn’t intended to get involved in the events of the game. As a background character, I wanted to watch from afar, if I paid attention at all. Whatever happened should have nothing to do with me, but the future didn’t look so promising. Who knew where we’d end up if I let things keep brewing like this? I had to look into the matter myself.

The only girl I was close with in the higher classes was Olivia, so I brought up the topic with her when we were sitting in the library.

“Sorry, I don’t know very much either,” she said. “For a while, the girls were really cold toward Marie. But things seemed to have settled down now.”

“Can I ask one more thing? Have you had any interactions with her?”

From my perspective, it seemed like Marie had somehow stolen the protagonist’s place in the game, but perhaps this world didn’t have any relation to the otome game after all. Maybe I had the wrong idea. That didn’t seem likely, but…

“Oh, we’ve met several times. The first was a few days after the entrance ceremony. I came to the library, and she approached me.” Olivia’s eyes turned somber, and her gaze fell to her lap.

Clearly she wasn’t too keen on discussing the encounter, but I had to know. I needed more info if I was going to fix this.

Suddenly, she asked, blushing, “Are girls like her…your type?”

I couldn’t help the look of utter disgust. Olivia blinked in surprise. “Did I guess wrong?”

“I hate her,” I said fiercely.

“O-oh, I didn’t realize.” She fell silent for a moment. “I went to the library just to get a peek at it, but Marie told me to get out. She said I was a nuisance. It happened more than once.” She forced a smile. “She came up to me in the courtyard, too, and just like before, she treated me like a pest. I asked her what I’d done to upset her. She just said, ‘I hate girls like you.’”

Marie hated Olivia? Certainly a number of noble ladies disliked having a commoner attend the academy, but it sounded like something else was going on.

I fell silent, and Olivia looked troubled. Before either of us could speak again, a voice suddenly rang out.

“We’re going to do it here?”

“Why not? It’s just you and me.”

Oh? Some couple was having a romantic rendezvous in the library? Who’s the lucky bastard?

I crouched down and sneaked over toward where the voices had come from.

“Leon!” Olivia scolded me in a whisper. “What do you think you’re doing?!”

I kept my voice low. “I gotta know. It’s important for us guys to keep track of who’s hooking up with who, after all.”

Together, we peeked behind the shelves. I had to slap a hand over Olivia’s mouth to keep her from giving away our position when she gasped in surprise.

A man with purple hair had his arms wrapped tight around the waist of a petite, blonde girl.

That’s right. Brad Fou Field is one of those types that’s always in here.

Miss Olivia’s eyes were also fixated on the two.

And it wasn’t just anyone Brad was kissing—it was Marie.

Slowly, Olivia and I crawled back from the shelves and fled.

 

***

 

Marie Fou Lafan was on her way back to her dormitory, having just left the library. She pressed her fingers to her lips as she recalled her romantic encounter with Brad.

“Ha. This world really is incredible. Not as many idiotic men here as there were in my previous world, and women get to rule over them. It’s perfect.”

The evening sky was bathed in orange as the sun began to set. Marie suppressed the urge to skip as she walked along.

“Those stupid girls have stopped bullying me since Julius and the others scolded them. I can finally enjoy my second chance at school life. Things are so perfect.”

The role of an otome game protagonist was truly the ideal life. She had replaced the protagonist, and now the whole world revolved around her.

Turning a corner down a school corridor, she spotted Julius and Jilk.

“There you are, Marie!” Had they been looking for her?

The two ambled over.

Those two are always together, she noted. Wait, are they…? I mean, I’ve heard homosexual relationships were pretty normal, historically. It’s not unthinkable.

Marie smiled at them as she entertained herself with lurid thoughts. She adjusted her posture; it was easy to pretend to be the sort of girl they wanted. Julius was especially simple.

“What is it, Your Highness?” she asked.

He looked exasperated. “Stop calling me that. Just Julius is fine. Anyway, Jilk and I were talking… You don’t have your own servant, do you?”

Marie shook her head and put on a show of being embarrassed. “I-I’m afraid not. My house is a bit… Well, our finances are too tight, so I wasn’t able to afford one.”

I wish I could have at least been reborn into a house with some money—or to parents who knew how to not blow their fortune on pointless crap. She masked her dissatisfaction, playing up the angle of a noble but self-sacrificing heroine.

“In that case,” Jilk said, “allow the prince and me to foot the bill so you can buy yourself one. You must feel lonely here at the academy without a servant of your own.”

Inwardly, she pumped her fist in victory. Nice! Now I’ll have a lover, and I won’t have to worry about getting pregnant! There’s so few girls here who don’t have slaves. It’s been really humiliating not owning one myself. Weird that women can just strut around in the open with their lovers… Not that I care! I’m delighted.

It did strike her as odd that two of her love interests were gifting her a lover, but she didn’t dwell too much on it; that was just how this world worked.

She put on a display of gratitude. “Th-thank you, Your Hi—I mean, Julius and Jilk.”

The prince blushed when she said his name. More than ever, Marie felt confident she had nothing to be nervous about.

Jilk turned to walk on. “In that case, I’ll prepare a carriage and we can go now. We’ll head to the best slave market in the capital.”

 

***

 

Only nobles of earl rank and higher could use the more luxurious rooms in the girls’ dormitory. Even more ostentatious suites were prepared for girls descended from royalty.

Angelica was staying in one such room, and one of her followers had just marched inside.

“Lady Angelica, that girl! She’s having the prince buy her a demi-human slave right as we speak.”

Angelica stood by the window, her back facing the other girl. “Leave her. If she understood the meaning of that slave, she would realize the true nature of their relationship.”

“But still…!”

Angelica was the daughter of a duke. If money were the only issue, she could have easily bought dozens of slaves if she wanted. But a duke’s daughter never would, and more importantly, she was engaged to the prince. As the future queen, it would only sully her name to keep a lover. She dismissed her follower from the room.

As soon as the girl was gone, Angelica reached for a decoration on a nearby table and threw it to the floor with all the strength she could muster.

“Why is he so…obsessed with a worthless girl like her?! Everything I’ve done…everything… All for the sake of the prince…!”

Not long ago, Julius and the other high lords had interrogated the girls bullying Marie. Angelica had never ordered them to do any such thing, and the bullies hadn’t actually been her followers, but they were all in the same larger clique. The girls had gotten carried away, using Marie as a punching bag to vent their frustrations. When Julius and the others hounded them about it, the terrified girls laid the blame on Angelica.

It left her in a troublesome position. She understood the pressures of society left many women in her class emotionally volatile, and that they had been unable to withstand the negative attention from Julius and his friends, shifting the blame the second it occurred to them to do so. Yet now, she was force to take it.

Angelica had tried to explain to Julius that she wasn’t involved. But neither he nor his friends would believe her, and her position within the school had suffered for it. Even now, the number of girls and boys trying to curry favor with Marie was steadily increasing—mostly wealthy second and third sons who wouldn’t inherit their family’s territory and girls who weren’t fond of Angelica to begin with.

That didn’t matter to Angelica. She didn’t have the time for peons. What frustrated her was how readily Julius and his friends had bought the lies. It was utterly vexing.

“They think I ordered this? There’s no proof anywhere, but they’re so eager to believe everything that girl says…”

Even worse, the real culprits had now allied themselves with a group spreading terrible rumors about Angelica—a group that was gradually gaining influence. Angelica had nevertheless held strong…until Julius said something that crushed her:

We may be engaged, but at the academy, we’re nothing more than fellow students. Don’t interfere with my life.

Tears welled up in her eyes as she sank down to the floor.

“I-I was raised for this…I was raised to be with the prince! He’s the only reason I’m here!”

Angelica loved Julius, but he didn’t feel the same. To him, their future marriage was nothing more than a political arrangement. Ever since their engagement was made official, Angelica had poured everything into training to be a good partner for him. She’d worked so hard for his sake, but never once had he rewarded her efforts.

The only thing Julius wanted was Marie.

“Your Highness…if you’d only tell me what you want, I could… Why her?!”

Angelica clapped her hands over her face, and the tears burst forth. She curled into a ball as she sobbed.

***

 

“Hey, louse!”

It was the morning of one of our precious days off, and some fiend (a.k.a. my sister Jenna) came charging into the boys’ dormitory with her prized slave in tow.

I yawned, glancing at the clock. Realizing it was still only seven in the morning, I flopped back into bed.

“Don’t sleep!” she screeched. “What the heck is going on?! Explain it to me right now!”

I had no idea why she was foaming at the mouth, and I was way more interested in catching a few more minutes of sleep than bothering to find out. “Sorry, the boys had martial arts training yesterday. I’m exhausted.”

The girls got to enjoy leisure sports while the boys went on long runs and drilled in the mud. Dying in battle with humans and monsters wasn’t altogether rare in this world, so training was pretty intense.

“Enough lazing about! Tell me everything you know about the situation with the first-year students. Right this minute!” She clapped her hands in my face.

Her cat-eared servant lifted me out of bed and plopped me into a chair.

I sat there, rubbing the sleep from my eyes, yawning. “You want info about the first-years? I’m sure you know more than I do.”

“There are weird rumors, everywhere. And for all intents and purposes, you are a student of the higher class.”

“For all intents and purposes,” what the hell? Rude.

“Uh, okay, well,” I tried, “I’ve heard that two of the most desirable girls, Milly and Jessica, already found partners. Pretty disappointing for the rest of us. They were both good catches.”

“Who cares about that?” she scoffed.

Who cares? Just every male student at the academy, that’s who!

“You know that Marie girl, right?” Jenna continued.

I flinched at the mention, remembering the sight of Marie swapping spit with Brad in the library. “She’s, uh…really close with Prince Julius’s group.”

“Just the prince?”

“Oh, she’s close with the other high lords, too. Real close.”

Being all over each other on school grounds was bound to stir rumors, whether Marie and Brad had intended for that to happen or not. And in Marie’s case, she was already a hot topic.

“There’s a duke’s daughter in your grade, too, right?” Jenna asked. “Spill. What do you know about her?”

“You think I know anything? The only thing I’ve heard is she really ticked off the crown prince.”

Jenna fell into silent contemplation.

It was my turn to ask the questions. “Do you know any specifics? People say the duke’s daughter was the one who put out the order for girls to bully Marie.”

“Are you an imbecile?” she sneered.

Me?! She was the one who’d barged into the boys’ dormitory first thing in the morning! So she was the one who could stand to learn a few things…like discretion! Although, considering she had a lover waiting on her every need wherever she went, she’d pretty much already thrown discretion to the wind.

“At her level, she doesn’t need to put out an order. The girls will act on their own against anyone she doesn’t like.” Jenna shook her head. “If she were serious about squashing Marie, the girl would already be dead. Duke families have unfathomable power. Honestly, this is why men are so worthless.”

“So the duke’s daughter had nothing to do with the bullying?”

“I didn’t say that. It was still the girls in her group that were doing it, so she has to take responsibility for their actions.”

“Doesn’t sound reasonable to me.”

She shrugged. “That’s just how things work.”

Apparently women also had it hard in this otome game world. Or at least, the villainess had it hard. But in the game, the duke’s daughter had been the one ordering the other girls to bully the protagonist…although maybe I was remembering wrong? It’d been ten years since I’d played.

Jenna glanced at me and turned solemn. “The second- and third-years are in a state of panic. I really wish that girl wouldn’t stir up so much trouble around the crown prince. I had my own plans and now they’re a mess. You should put more serious effort into gathering information, you know! Report to me properly from now on.”

What the hell do you think I am? I’m not your gofer. Though I was still going to look into this. It felt like a problem.

“Do you fully comprehend what this means?” she asked.

“You girls are having a rough time.”

“Moron! Imbecile! Worthless!”

I clapped my hands over my ears. It was far too early for her shrieking.

Exasperated, she explained, “Assuming nothing unforeseen happens, the crown prince will succeed the throne! You’re in his grade! If you keep on his good side, you’ll have a promising future. Got it? On the other hand, if you do anything to upset him, it’s all over for you.”

I was just a lowly baron from the border region. The prince had nothing to do with me. I mean, I guess it mattered to Jenna because she wanted to live in the capital. If she was related to some guy the prince disliked, her outlook for climbing the social ladder would be pretty dim.

“As long as I can find a partner and graduate without any trouble, I don’t care about the prince,” I said.

“Ugh, you men are impossible!”

While I had considered the possibility of trying to curry favor with the prince and his friends for my own benefit, that would just mean I’d get wrapped up in whatever plot-related trouble brewed in the future. I didn’t want that. Things in the kingdom were going to go to hell in the future anyway, assuming the events followed the game’s story.

“Anyway,” she huffed, “you’re not involved, right? That means there’s nothing for me to worry about.”

“They don’t care about a countryside baron like me,” I assured her. Though I was still concerned about what Marie thought she was doing.

“There are separate parties for all the grades at the end of the first term. Don’t blow it and embarrass me,” Jenna warned. “Hmph, all this upheaval… Now I have to pick a different guy as my partner again.” She started toward the door, preoccupied with her own problems. “Oh, one other thing. Have you found a partner yet?”

That big smirk on her face irked me. Despite her awful personality, Jenna had an endless line of men approaching her for marriage. I was envious of her ability to pick and choose.

“If I had, I wouldn’t be struggling like this,” I grumbled.

“I figured as much. You may stand out, but you don’t have any charm. Maybe it’s time for you to make some self-improvements.”

I snorted. “Well, this charmless louse is the one who improved our family’s fortune enough for you to buy that slave of yours. How’s that make you feel? Go on, tell me, dear sister.”

“Go fall out of a window!” she shrieked, then stomped out of the room, her slave following behind her.

I got up from the chair and stretched.

Luxion, who’d pretended to be an inanimate fixture in the room, floated up to me. “Quite the lively morning.”

“Already time for the first term to end,” I mumbled. “I guess it makes sense, having a party. We are nobles, after all.”

This otome game world had events for first-years similar to school events in Japan. Well, the game was made for a Japanese audience, after all.

“All I did this term was venture into a dungeon with my friends and have tea parties,” I moaned.

“It’s true you haven’t really accomplished anything. You are a bit of a sloth, Master,” Luxion said.

“Do you have some kind of grudge against me, Luxion?”

“I hate all new humans. By virtue of that, I hate you as well.”

“You poor thing, getting used and abused by someone you loathe,” I mocked him. “Don’t worry, I’ll be working you hard for the rest of my life.”

“I look forward to it,” he replied coolly.

Despite Luxion’s opinion, my life at the academy so far had actually been quite hectic. In addition to attending classes every day, I’d also been dungeoning to earn extra cash. Not that it had done me much good. All that money had gone to inviting girls to tea parties, only for them to end in failure one by one. In that way, the term had passed in the blink of an eye.

“Hey,” I said suddenly, “can you gather some information for me?”

For as mouthy as he was, Luxion was still a devoted robot. “You want me to look into the duke’s daughter and Marie Fou Lafan, yes? I can, but only for relevant data. I won’t share their bust, waist, and hip sizes with you, for example.”

After a pause, I mumbled, “You’d better share.”

“It’s unnecessary information. I must decline.”

“Oh well.” I shrugged. “Can you look into what Jenna was talking about?”

“You want to understand the relationships between the prince, the duke’s daughter, and Marie? How is that relevant to you?” He sounded skeptical. “You’ve always said you weren’t going to get involved. Are you changing your mind?”

“I’m just curious.”

“A nosy onlooker? You truly are beyond all hope. Very well, I will look into the situation.”

Luxion’s body melted into the background like a chameleon, finally disappearing from view as he slipped out of the room to fulfill his mission.

That robot really can do everything.