Prologue
THE SUN’S RAYS GREW SHORT as the shadows elongated. By the time school was over, darkness began to descend. As the hour grew late and the temperature dropped, I found myself in a tearoom on the second floor of the main school building.
“Maybe it’s about time I get a space heater in here. Or, if we could get a room with a fireplace, I could find some firewood to keep us warm,” I said as I busied myself with making a fresh pot of tea, my back turned to the woman I had invited to join me.
“I wonder about you sometimes. This is hardly cold enough to complain about,” Marie shot back. “I can put up with this just fine.”
Her full name was Marie Fou Lafan. She had blonde hair, blue eyes, and was in the same year as me at the academy. She was also my betrothed. Although she had attractive features, her most notable quality was perhaps her petite, slender build. Her diet had improved—become more nutritious, specifically—which gave her skin and hair a healthier sheen. While her long, voluminous blonde locks had always been eye-catching, their new luster heightened her looks. Her small stature gave the impression that she was younger than she really was. Those who didn’t know her would probably think she looked as adorable and fragile as a porcelain doll.
Her personality was the polar opposite of her looks. Like me, Marie had reincarnated into this otome game, retaining memories of her past life. We’d originally been players of the game we now found ourselves stuck in. In other words, basically, Marie’s appearance was incredibly deceptive. She was no adorable, fragile doll.
“This isn’t a competition,” I said with an annoyed sigh, carrying the tea tray over.
Marie gratefully picked up her cup and blew on the rippling liquid within, then cautiously took a sip. “Ah. This really warms the body.”
“Now I get it. You were just too proud to admit that you’re as cold as I am.” The boorish way she held her cup and guzzled her tea as soon as it cooled enough was unbecoming of an aristocrat, but I didn’t blame her.
This tea party was really a pretense for our true goal. We were meeting to discuss the future; we needed to talk about what would now happen in the game. And we had to do so privately, so we couldn’t have this conversation in a classroom and risk someone overhearing it.
This tea room was the perfect meeting spot for the three of us. The third member of our little group wasn’t exactly a person. Rather, it was my AI partner, Luxion. His mobile unit was about the size and shape of a globe, and was made of metal with a single red lens at its center. His real body was a spaceship over seven hundred meters long. Given that unwieldy size, he typically accompanied me and provided support in his mobile form. The enormous spaceship would only get in the way, and it had more power and functionality than I needed on a daily basis anyway.
“Master, Marie, our time is limited,” Luxion interjected. “May we dispense with trivialities and move to the main topic?”
Marie finally set her cup down. “You want to ask what I think we should do now, right? I’ve got a few ideas.” She smiled proudly, as if she’d given this serious thought. That was a rare action for her, but she might be striving to show due consideration for this world’s future.
“Okay, let’s hear them. You seem awfully confident,” I said.
She snickered gleefully. “I’ve taken everything into account.” Leaping out of her chair and throwing her arms wide, she continued, “Our school trip will go to a Japan-inspired island! Word has it that it’s summer there, and apparently they also have a festival! So I’m definitely going to have a yukata ready for the occasion.”
Luxion and I traded blank looks. “I should’ve known. You didn’t think about this at all.” I shook my head.
As if doing likewise, Luxion “shook” his lens from side to side—his best way of signifying exasperation. “She has let excitement over the upcoming trip cloud her brain.”
Marie puffed her cheeks, glowering at us both. “This will be the biggest event of our academic lives! It’s precisely what you should be thinking about!”
She was right about one thing. A school trip had been the highlight of a person’s academic career in our previous lives. However, things were a little different at this academy.
“You can hardly blame me for not being that excited when it’s a yearly trip that students from every year go on,” I pointed out.
In Japan, school trips were only for second-year students, so in your three years of high school, you only went on one. That uniqueness made the trip special. It was the exact opposite here. The trips were annual, and everyone was invited. To me, that cheapened the experience.
Marie disagreed with me. “There are three different destinations, though!” she insisted. “So each year, after we’re broken into groups, we get to go somewhere different. It’s not like it’s the same trip every time.”
“Who cares if the destination’s different?” I shrugged. “Wherever you go, you still do the same crap.”
“It’s hardly the same in a completely different place! Get a little excited, would you?!”
The teachers did choose different destinations each year to help broaden the students’ horizons with varied experiences. That was also why they split us students into mixed groups from different years. It was supposed to give us a chance to meet and mingle with students we didn’t usually interact with.
In the game, this whole school trip had been designed as an opportunity for the protagonist to develop her relationship with her chosen love interest. I remembered that well, because I had to play through it an ungodly number of times—primarily because there was a completely randomized element. You could get your hands on a really powerful item, but whether you did was completely random, so the trick was to save scum until you nabbed it.
The whole thing had been a massive pain in my butt when I played. Anyway, we needed to address bigger problems now.
“Let’s talk about the school trip stuff later,” I suggested.
Marie looked offended. “Later? We don’t have much time before then!”
I heaved a long, beleaguered sigh. “But the Offreys bowed out of the story a lot sooner than they were supposed to,” I reminded her.
Marie flinched, finally sinking back into her seat. All her eagerness and excitement disappeared as an anxious shadow settled on her face. “You’re talking about Stephanie, right? It’s my fault you had to do all that.”
Stephanie, Earl Offrey’s daughter, was supposed to be the mid-game boss. Her family had consorted with air pirates and were involved in all kinds of crimes. They were villains, to put it bluntly.
Halfway through the game, Stephanie was supposed to get fed up with the protagonist and use the Offreys’ power and influence to try to get rid of her, sending air pirates after her. The love interests would all flock to the protagonist’s aid, saving her before anything unfortunate could happen. Stephanie would then be promptly punished by the crown. In fact, after all their misdeeds were revealed, the entire Offrey family would be divested of their rank.
That, at least, was how it had gone in the game.
“There is no need to trouble yourself over the matter, Marie,” said Luxion. “The Offreys made the first move, and their own crimes were their undoing.”
However much he consoled her, Marie’s hands remained tense as her fingers interlaced in her lap. “It’s my fault for approaching Brad and trying to snag someone out of my league.”