Chapter 6 - Volume 1 (2/2)

「His Majesty?」

「Yes. ——He said I had to defeat the demon king along with the hero.」

I gasped. It was a miracle I could keep myself from screaming. That was how much of a shock I’d received on one hand, but on the other hand, I somehow understood. Ah, I knew it.

It certainly had to be 『me』 and not me who was able to stay so eerily calm. As he looked down at 『me』, he continued matter-of-factly.

「I’ll leave the day after tomorrow, with the princess and the head knight.」

「……That’s a rather urgent matter.」

「It’s so we can’t run away, right?」

He smiled his unchanging smile full of cynicism. If I was myself like usual, I would have tried to smile, scolding him, 「That’s rude!」 But I couldn’t smile then. Instead of smiling, I suddenly thought.

Doesn’t this man truly have a lot of warning flags, foreshadowing things to come in the story?

It took me so long to realize that reality for the first time.

This world is the realm of high fantasy, of swords and sorcery. High fantasy. As I bore that in mind once again, those were terrifying words.

Fantasy, meaning that everyone recognizes something called destiny. The world has already been written out like a future. What one must keep in mind now is that man’s position here.

If he’s the wizard of the party of heroes (hah!), there’s a lot of patterns in place. Amidst them, the most frightening one that anyone could imagine once is the so-called death flag, isn’t it? He could make the hero go ahead and leave himself behind, or use incredible magic that takes his life, or protect the hero, or protect the heroine in place of the hero.

And then, overcoming the death of his friend (the wizard), the hero would take down the demon king along with the heroine and save the world. Yes, the heroine. In this case, the princess holds the heroine’s position.

Thinking this far, I just remembered. 「Hasn’t it already been foreshadowed that this man will be a companion of the princess?」

He described her as 「unusual」. If it was just that, I wouldn’t have kept it in mind but the truth is, that’s not the only thing. Since the first time he met her at the tea party, it seems he keeps being called on by her for something or another.

Let’s set aside the fact that I thought ‘hey, what?! I’m so jealous!’ The problem here, or the important thing here is that, in other words, he and the princess grew closer without me knowing.

The princess famous as the living jewel of the kingdom, and that man, famed as the night fairy. No doubt if they stood together, it would make for a splendid picture. In other words, that man holds one more flag than the death flag. A romance flag, foreshadowing a romance with the princess.

Even if he returned home safely, the likelihood of him still marrying me would be equal to zero. Although the chances of him hitting it off with the princess have lowered since the hero showed up, I can’t imagine that man, who has integrity despite only saying cynical and disagreeable things, to marry me if he already had a lover.

I could easily picture him declaring, 「I want to break off the engagement.」

That’s why I prepared myself for the worst.