I Became the Second-in-Command in a Romance Fantasy Novel

It was a strange ceiling.
What the hell?
Did I reincarnate into another world?

"Ah, you're awake?"
When I woke up, a woman I had never seen before was smiling at me.
What? Did I really reincarnate into another world?
"Ah, you haven't seen me before, right? I'm the new healer. I'm also in charge of the academy's infirmary."

Some information about the academy came to mind.
After the terrorist attack, many new personnel had been added to the academy.
Some of them were agents sent from the Empire.
Violet had also mentioned that a small number of them were hostile forces infiltrating the academy.
"I see."
The moment I saw a suspicious person, the information naturally came to mind, and I realized that I was still in the romance fantasy world.

What a shame.
If it weren’t for the deep apocalypse genre, this world might have been better than a romance fantasy world.
"You’re lucky to be awake quickly. There’s a faculty meeting soon, and I was wondering if I should attend. Since both of you seem fine, I guess I can go?"
I hadn’t realized that the infirmary director was also a professor.
I nodded in response to the cheerful healer professor who was smiling and asking if I had any pain and then just laid back down.

Looking at the light coming through the window, it seemed like it wasn’t evening yet.
Since it wasn’t a regular meeting day, I could legally skip out on a little.
However, that choice seemed to have been a mistake.
"Adam Smith."
A cold voice pierced my ears.
It didn’t {N•o•v•e•l•i•g•h•t} seem like the person had any particular grudge against me; it just sounded like a naturally cold voice.

"I thought I’d meet you someday, and lucky for me, I did."
For a moment, all kinds of thoughts flashed through my mind.
Who was this? Could they be the villain from the romance fantasy?
It wouldn’t be strange for an assassin to be sent to deal with me, the one who helped defeat Silence, in this world.
So I opened my eyes and looked at the person who had spoken to me.

"..."
And in that moment, three thoughts crossed my mind.
One, thankfully, I recognized the face, or rather, I only knew the face.
Two, in a way, this person was indeed a villain in the romance fantasy.
And the third, although this person might genuinely want to kill me, I was absolutely certain I wouldn’t die.
For good reason.

"...Are you okay?"
"Yeah, it hurts a bit."
"It doesn’t look like just a bit."
"Honestly... it hurts quite a lot."
The person who spoke to me was actually in such a bad condition that they should have been out of the bed right then.
What exactly is the main villain in a romance fantasy?
Is it the revolutionary forces or dark wizards who occasionally cause trouble at the academy?
Or is it someone like Silence, who has a tragic backstory and threatens the male protagonist whenever they feel like it?
Or perhaps the demon lord who appears as the final boss in Violet’s chapters?

No, none of these.
The revolutionary forces and dark wizards causing chaos at the academy were simply pathetic devices to increase the heroine’s and hero’s favorability.
The main villain with a huge backstory, like Silence, was simply a sacrifice to boost the male protagonist’s rise in the story.
The demon lord, who appeared like a final boss, was merely a newly introduced male protagonist candidate.
That’s right.
No matter how much the story feels like an apocalyptic fantasy, the core of a romance fantasy is romance, not fantasy.
In this sense, the true main villain of a romance fantasy isn’t the enemy of the male protagonists who will eventually disappear.
It’s the heroine’s enemy!
In short, it’s the villainous young lady.

In that sense, the person before me was the true main villain of the academy part of the story.
None other than the Empire’s prince, who was the male protagonist of the academy part.
Esid Elleras’s fiancée, Lorelliya Jayka.
Normally, I should have been tense in front of such a person.
She was the eldest daughter of the prestigious Jayka family in the Empire, and she herself had immense influence in the Empire’s social circles.
However, despite being covered by the school uniform, I could see bandages here and there.
There were small wounds in places the bandages didn’t cover.
Her sharp eyes contrasted with the dark circles under her eyes, which, unlike what you would expect from a noble lady, evoked a protective instinct from me, despite her cold expression and voice.

Even Violet had said that, fundamentally, Lorelliya wasn’t a character fitting for a high-ranking noblewoman.
After looking into it a bit, I found that, using her immense social influence, she was teaching the pleasure of servitude to noble young ladies.
The more I looked, the less I could understand.
Some of the royal family’s noblewomen were obsessed with flowers, learning flower arrangements, while Lorelliya, the villainous young lady, had gathered her followers and founded a volunteer club in her first year.
She even negotiated with the executives of the Light Church, who were stationed at the academy, to build an orphanage near the academy.
Not only did she build it, but she was also involved in running it.
Looking at her tendencies, I figured she wouldn’t just forget about it after graduating from the academy.
The more I looked at her, the more confusing it seemed.
This is the villainous young lady?
I wouldn’t be surprised if she turned dark later on, but didn’t Violet say she maintained her goodness until the very end?

"Did something happen to you?"
Knowing all of that, I had no choice but to treat Lorelliya with respect as a senior.
After all, my lord was involved with the wicked men who took away the fiancée of such a noble person!
"I’ve been experimenting with magic lately... made a mistake."

For a moment, I almost teared up.
If you just heard it, you’d think she had an accident while experimenting with magic.
But hadn’t Violet said?
 
— She was effectively abandoned by her fiancé, Prince Esid. And instead of sending assassins, she’s trying to prove herself fairly through her own ability.

A noble lady was robbed of her fiancé by a baron’s daughter no one had even heard of.
And instead of resorting to an assassin, she was trying to win him back with her own merit.
Even though that meant pushing herself to the point of serious injury, she had quietly received treatment in the infirmary, without a single rumor spreading through the academy.
"That sounds like a pretty serious accident. I had no idea."
"Yes, I requested it. The academy’s already in chaos—if students get anxious because of me, it would only make things worse."
Even her embarrassed smile seemed to radiate light.
If Daisy’s glow was an active skill, then Lorelliya’s aura felt like a passive one.
Is this what it means for a person to shine on their own?
I was learning all sorts of things in this romance fantasy world.

"By the way, you mentioned earlier that you wanted to meet me."
"Ah, right. There’s something I wanted to ask you."
Maybe it was because I was looking at a living saint, but I felt like I could answer anything that wasn’t a kingdom-level secret.
Honestly, I had a higher favorability toward her than toward Violet, who was in the same boat as me.
If I judged by pure personal feeling, it might even be higher than Prince Ellen’s.
So this is why people say it’s important to live virtuously.
Maybe it’s because I’ve lived like a scumbag myself, but I instinctively felt weak to people like her—like a vengeful spirit being exorcised by a priest.

"Hmm…"
But then, after closing her eyes briefly to think, Lorelliya asked a question that far exceeded my expectations.
"Would you be willing to become my spy?"

Now that was a question worthy of a villainous noble lady.
"...And that’s what happened."
"I’ve seen this before. It’s the classic extra-character-becomes-love-interest trope."
"Can you stop watching so much romance fantasy?"
When I told her that I’d have to think about it, Lorelliya naturally accepted it.
So I summoned Violet, the expert on the original story and all things romance fantasy, and relayed everything that had happened in the infirmary.

Her immediate response was, of course, nonsense.
"I’m telling you, this has potential!"
"I’m literally trying to prevent the prince from getting into an international romance. Do you think I would get into one?"
Even if I were to date, I’d wait until I returned to the kingdom.
That’s how I had planned my life.

"Life never goes according to plan."
"If you keep talking shit during meetings, I’m docking your pay."
"No! I just charged a staff on an installment plan from the magic tower!"
How long had this idiot even been working? He was already overspending.
"No, but seriously, I needed it. It was a calculated expense!"
"That’s what all broke bastards say."
"I mean, I burned through all my cursed arts last time, remember? The rituals I studied are bound by time and accumulation. I’d need at least until next year to use them properly. Like the academy’s going to wait that long."

Just hearing it made it sound like the academy was the enemy, not the villains.
But honestly, considering how the academy keeps getting attacked and it’s always the students who have to solve it, maybe that really is the case.
"So?"
"I’m still ranked near the top of the first-year magic class. If I get decent gear, I can pull my weight."
So his argument was that this much spending was necessary to prepare for the incidents ahead.

"Hmm, fair enough."
Since Violet would be suffering in my place during summer vacation, I decided to let the salary cut slide—just this once.
"Anyway, back to the point. Why would someone like her ask me to be a spy?"

She was such a good person. Why was she suddenly stepping into villainous noble lady territory?
Could this be one of the aftereffects of the original story breaking down?
"Oh, that part’s actually in the original."
Violet said it like it was no big deal.

"Oh?"
I naturally placed a hand on her head.
"Oh, are you going to praise me?"
"Die."
"Ow ow ow!"
"I want it to hurt, you dumbass!"

I immediately put her in an iron claw.
"Ugh… I thought my head was going to split open..."
Violet rolled on the floor, clutching her head with a pained expression, but I felt no guilt at all.

"You should’ve told me this right away."
How could she not report something this important in advance?
"No, wait!"

I was starting to think maybe I really did need to dock her pay after all. But Violet jumped to her feet and shouted with a face full of righteous indignation.
"I said it was in the original, not that it would happen exactly like the original!"
"What kind of bullshit logic is that?"
To summarize:
Yes, in the original story, Lorelliya does suggest someone become her spy.

"But that person was supposed to be you?"
"Of course! You weren’t even a character in the original, remember?"
Come to think of it, she was right.
Originally, there wasn’t supposed to be a supporting character next to Prince Ellen.
"Lorelliya offering the spy deal? That was supposed to be my role."

The original version of that scene featured Violet, the friend of the romance fantasy heroine.
In other words, it was supposed to be the villainous noble lady trying to seduce the heroine’s childhood friend.
"Why?"
"Basically, it was a narrative trick to make Lorelliya seem bad."
It was meant to create a sense of crisis for the heroine by showing someone close to her being tempted by money.

"But it’s nothing special. She just wanted to know what Daisy was good at, what she was confident in, and what she wasn’t."
She was just doing her best to understand her romantic rival.
"Then why not just ask directly? Why phrase it in a way that sounds like she’s recruiting a spy?"
"She probably thinks it's a really awful thing to do."

With Violet’s expert opinion that it wouldn’t actually cause any harm, I told Lorelliya the next day that I would accept.
"Thank you. I trusted you would."
Faced with her smile full of genuine trust, I scratched my cheek awkwardly.

"We only just met yesterday, so what exactly are you trusting?"
"I already know quite a lot about you."
"Really?"
"Yes. For example…"
I had only said it casually, but the things she started listing were... beyond my expectations.
"……"

Three minutes later, cold sweat began to run down my back.
What the hell?
I didn’t even use SK2 in my past life, and yet somehow, she had stripped all my data like she’d hacked my phone carrier’s SIM records.