“It’s a type of game where you play as a character in a story.”
“Aaah, there might have been something like that. Something similar to backgammon[TN-1], where the story changes depending on your choices. It’s a book though. I think it was called a role playing game.”
“I guess you could say it’s one of those games. Using the computer...... Using somethingcalled a gaming machine, you control the main character and play inside the game world.”
This girl is really something. Her imagination is amazing. If something like that were possible, I think it would make for an extremely fun game.
“And well, I played that game. This world we are in now is the world from the game I played. I died once before and got reincarnated into this world. I’m not a person from this world.”
She came up with an amazing setting!
“What do you mean by that?”
“I was reincarnated from another world and came to this one. Before coming here,I lived in a country called Japan on the planet Earth.”
“And you say you have your previous memories?”
“Yes.”
“But you were born to the Ducal household, raised there and reached the age of ten there, right? ”
“That’s right. Right when I saw your highnesses face, memories from that time came flooding back to me, my head was filled to the brim, I started feeling dizzy and ended up collapsing.”
Dear elder sister. A problem that I can’t handle came up.Do I have to make this girl my wife, love her and make her happy?
“That’s rough....”
Can’t I say something a bit more clever?
“So, who were you in your previous life?”
“I was sickly since I was a little girland I was constantly being hospitalized with chronic illness, I wasn’t able to go to school much either, I’ve been very sick all my life....”
“You look pretty healthy now.... actually, you did just collapse, so that might not be the case either.”
“During a long hospitalization, my illness kept getting worse and worse and I died at the age of ten.”
The story turned heavy all of a sudden.
“Wasn’t it a dream by any chance?”
“It wasn’t a dream. If anything this looks like a dream now, but its reality.”
Uaaaaaaaaaaa. What should I do? Should keep asking about it?
“So, how do you know that this world is the world of a game?”
“Because everything is just like in the game I played a lot while I was hospitalized.”
“Do you remember what the game was about?”
“I do.”
“I’d like to hear about it.”
I know what’s happening. When a kid gets too absorbed in a heroic tale or a novel, they become unable to distinguish between reality and fiction, and they start to think that they became the main character of the story.
I think it’s called fourteen-year-old syndrome[TN-2]. It’s also called the fourteen-year-old disease. You know, guys who would suddenly clasp their eye with their bandaged left hand and yell things like ‘My eye, my eye! ‘ and ‘Guaaaaaaa! Calm down my black dragon crest!’. There are people who can use magic here and there, but this one kid I knew was convinced he could use magic like a grand wizard.
Usually, as the name implies, people start having such delusions around the age of fourteen, but to start at the age of ten, this young lady is quite precocious.
When that happens, you should listen to them as much as you can, and say things like ‘Wow, amazing!’ and ‘As expected of you’, understanding their story is the first step you have to take. After that, the best thing to do would be to find contradictions in the story, oddities in the setting and let them know little by little that things like that don’t happen in the real world.
“I,who died in Japan when I was ten, reincarnated in this world, and now that I’mten years old here, my memories of that time came back.”
“Oooh, so you are saying that you are twenty now? I guess you are a lot older than me then.”
“I don’t have any memories before becoming ten years old, so I’d say I’m still ten...... Because my memories just got overlapped. ”
Hmm, I have to hand it to her, the setting is perfect.
“Um, prince do you believe me?”
“Just call me Shin, I believe you. It’s an interesting story.”
She’s suspicious of me. Her face is saying “There is no way that you can believe that”. I’m sorry. Honestly I want to do a dogeza and go home right away.
“The protagonist of that game... at the age of fifteen, is the first commoner in years to transfer to the aristocratic Flora Academy because of her excellent grades.”
“Yeah. That school is real. I will be enrolling there as well. I heard that there was a lot of opposition to the name at its founding, but the queen at the time pushed it through.”
“The commoner protagonist enters the school for children of nobles, distinguished families and knights, studies her hardest and becomes the top of her class. But by doing so, she became an eyesore to the noble children and is bullied by them.”
“......Not very impressive. If it were me I wouldmake the bullying stop with all my might.By the way, is it really fun to play a game with such a tragic protagonist ?”
“Since the protagonist is secretly being bullied, people who come to help her start appearing one by one, she falls in love with them and they end up in a relationship”
“That’s pretty convenient. But if they appear one by one, wouldn’t it be even more than two-timing.”
“I think that the maximum number of targets was 7?”
“Seven-timing!?”
What’s with that slutty protagonist? Kids shouldn’t be allowed to play such an unhealthy game.It should only be allowed to adults.
“It’s not like that. You have to make sure you don’t get hated by any of them. If you don’t do it like that, all of the capture targets will end up hating you.”
What do you mean by capture target? Are you even treating people of the opposite sex as humans? I’d like it if you would think a bit more about your way of addressing them.
“...... Wont you stop calling them “capture targets”? As a guy it makes me sad. ”
“I apologise...... You are right. They are real after all.”
“...... Guys wouldn’t come to hate a girl like that so much. If there was a girl with so many relationships that tries to please everyone, you wouldn’t even want to get involved with her enough to come to hate her.”
“It works like that since it’s a game.”
I want you to accept reality. I think that’s the first step to recovery from the fourteen-year-old syndrome.
“So, what happens to the protagonist?”
“In the good end, you end up marrying the gentlemen after graduating from the academy.”
“Isn’t that an improper‘happy end’?”
“I apologise. Yes it is.”
“So If there is a good, there must be a bad end. Is there also the best end?”
“There are. In the bad end you get hated by all of the characters, and you get expelled from the academy.”
“That’s harsh.”
“In the best end, you get married to the prince and become the princess.”
“That’s the best?...... Does that mean that the protagonist also loves the prince?”
“Yes.”
“Hmmm, well I think that that’s impossible. I mean, the prince normally already has a fiancée.”
“The protagonist gets to meet the prince at the academy and through various ‘events’, they fall in love and they end up in a romantic relationship.”
“What’s is an ‘event’? An incident like that...... In the first place, would a prince with a fiancée get involved with a girl like that......”
“And then, during the graduation party, the prince condemns his fiancée, breaks off their engagement and gets engaged to the protagonist.”
“That prince is awful! He is a cheater! No matter how I think about it, he is just a cheater!”
“That’s right, but from the perspective of the protagonist,it’s a ‘happy end’.”
“......I don’t think that being engaged to the price is always a ‘happy end’. That’s just my perspective as a prince. You have to have the resolution to govern the country, and have the responsibility to make the people happy. That’s whyit’s something you can only entrust to a noble woman. It’s not something a commoner can be involved in.”
It’s the same with my elder sister.
She is prepared to go to a large country all by herself, in order to get married to a prince whose face she doesn’t even know, does the protagonist have that sort of determination?I don’t think she does.
“......Could it be that you are that protagonist? No no no no, you aren’t a commonerLady Serea. You are the daughter of a Duke.”
“That’s not what I ment.”
“It’s not?”
“I’m not the protagonist.”
“You aren’t?”
“I’m the fiancée of the prince that got condemned, had her engagement broken and got banished.”
“Whaaaaaaaaaa?!!!!!!!”
So then I’m supposed to be that awful cheating prince?
I’m going to become like that?
Is that what she thinks of me?
“I’m the villainess. I’m what’s called a ‘villainess noble girl’.”
“If you were to call a lady of a noble household like that, you would be convicted for lese majesty......By the way what is that prince’s name?”
“Shin Midland, the first prince of the Rasteil kingdom, in other words, you your highness.”
“Do I really look like such an awful man?......”
Somehow, I feel really dejected.
“No, the prince is kind, doesn’t discriminate towards anyone and is friendly even to the commoners. He is an object of admiration for the entire student body.”
“...... I guess so, after all that’s what you have to do after getting enrolled in the academy. Tentatively the academy stands against discrimination based on social standing.”
That’s how it is. ‘Those who pass through these gates have to cast away their rank.’ is what’s written on the gates of the academy. It’s the idea that all are equal before scholarly pursuits.
The proposal came from my father, the king. In order to gain capable personnel accept anyone impartially regardless of social standing. It’s an idea that will lead to the growth of the country. I think it’s a policy people can get behind. That’s why regardless if you are a Duke, a Baron, a man, a woman or a commoner, in the academy there is no difference in status. You can speak with each other as equals.
“......Wouldn’t it have been fine even if you didn’t do this?”
“Eh?”
“I said, wouldn’t it have been fine even if you didn’t do this?”
“But, I can’t stop Shin-sama from falling for the protagonist.”
“Wouldn’t I be fine if I just don’t approach that girl?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know whether things will follow the game’s story or it can be changed, if it doesn’t work, I will be banished, the Colette family will fall to ruin, it will end in tragedy...... The villainess doesn’t have a ‘happy end’.”
If it’s like that, of course you don’t want to by my fiancée.
But for some reason, its vexing.Isn’t it unreasonable to assume now that I will do something in the future and because of that refuse the engagement?
You played games like this the entire time you were hospitalised, up until you died at the age of ten.
If you think about it, this girl is unhappy. Are you going to repeat that unhappiness in this world?
