Volume 2 - CH 6

“Wow, Luciana, you placed third in our class. That’s amazing.”

“Aren’t you tenth in the class, Luna? That’s just as amazing.”

It was the morning of the second day, and the students had arrived in class to find the results of yesterday’s midterms at the front of the room. All one hundred first-year students were there, ranked based on their score.

The teachers must have been quite skilled at their jobs to have finished grading the exams to then put out the results the very next day… This overtime seemed a bit suspicious, but that was not something for the students to notice or think about.

“Oh my, Miss Luciana, you had the third highest score? You did very well.”

“Ah, oh, good morning, Lady Annemarie.”

As Luciana and Luna looked at their test scores, Annemarie had come up from behind to greet them. The two girls bent their knees to give her a curtsy in greeting, while Annemarie returned a smile.

“Good morning, you two. Oh, and Miss Luna was tenth? You girls must have studied quite hard over the past month.

“Oh, no, certainly not as much as yourself, Lady Annemarie, or even the Crown Prince.”

Luna blushed with embarassment from Annemarie’s praise as she turned back to look at the rankings; there, at the very top was Christopher, followed by Annemarie with the second highest score.

“Fufufu, I suppose you could say my hard work has paid off then.”

The two joined Annemarie in laughter. They knew Annemarie had demonstrated great intellect even from a young age, so the results here were simply a continuation of that; after all, to them, Annemarie was the very model of a perfect noble lady despite all three of them being of the same year, so it was hard to imagine her struggling as they had in their studies. However…

(Aw, man, I’m so glad all that studying paid off! I worked so hard for it, too!)

Annemarie of the marquis-ranked House Victirium was the reincarnation of Asakura Anna, a Japanese high school girl and dating sim fanatic. In her past life, her grades in school were… definitely not important nor reflective of her current self!

The point is, Annemarie’s score here was solely the fruits of her hard work and efforts.

(The original Annemarie would never have scored this well. I really worked hard for this one.)

But as Annemarie mentally praised herself on a job well done, she cast a resentful gaze toward the name at the top of the list.

(And there’s him at the very top… It’s so frustrating, how did I do worse than that blockhead anyway? Is this some sort of narrative readjustment? Or is it a difference in character stats?)

She was referring to Crown Prince Christopher Theolas who, like her, was also a reincarnator of Japanese origin. In his past life, he was Kurita Hideki, an ordinary high school boy living in modern-day Japan, and his grades had been even harder to talk about than Anna’s, so let’s just leave it at that!

In “The Silver Saint”, Christopher would always place the highest in the first exam, which was indicative of his default base stats in the game. It seemed those stats had carried over, going by these results; though she gave it her best effort, Annemarie still fell short of Christopher, despite him having the personality of the reincarnated Hideki.

“Looks like you ranked first, Your Highness.”

“Hahaha, it seems all that effort I put into studying actually paid off.”

“Oh my, studying? Your Highness must be joking, ohohoho.”

Annemarie suddenly heard voices behind her praising Christopher; she could feel the anger welling up inside her, but she forced the emotion into maintaining her perfect smile.

(That guy makes me so mad! There’s no way he wasn’t just taking it easy and peacefully sleeping away while I had to force myself to cram all night!)

“Is something wrong, Lady Annemarie?”

“No, there’s… nothing going on at all.”

Annemarie gave the questioning Luciana a placating smile; she felt a pang of loneliness from being unable to tell Luciana the truth, but a warm feeling blossomed over it when she realized Luciana had noticed the subtle changes in her emotion and facial expression.

Knowing that, Annemarie was able to calm herself, and she resumed looking through the rankings.

(Christopher was first, I got second, and Luciana is third… What could this mean? Since the heroine isn’t here either, is the world adjusting again and making Luciana the substitute heroine?)

Back in the game, the heroine would always and without fail rank third in the first midterm exam; in a more traditional role-playing game, this would be like a fixed story battle: no matter the choices leading up to it, the end result would always stay the same.

Incidentally, if Melody had taken this exam, she would have taken the top score without fail. After all, even prior to reincarnating, she was a once-in-a-generation genius that could have left her mark on history; her specs by far outstripped even the Crown Prince.

In truth, the game should have started two months ago, and many smaller scale events occurred as they had in the game, despite the Academy’s temporary closure. However, as Annemarie tracked and followed these events to their finish, she began to notice that, when lacking the presence of the heroine, there would always be a sort of “substitute heroine” that acted as a corrective force to ensure the event played out as it originally should have.

These “sub-events” could begin without the actual heroine, and then there would always be a person involved in the events that stepped up to take on the role. Of course, it did not seem as though the people who stepped up were fully aware of what they were doing, and yet they would play their part as an appropriate substitute and see these sub-events to their end.

And so, going by her own observations, Annemarie had come to a conclusion just before the Academy would resume.

(If Luciana-chan becomes the substitute heroine at the Academy, then all the events here will center around her. And yet, she’s supposed to be a midgame boss, so…)

Indeed, Luciana’s original fate was to become the first major boss at the midpoint of the game, the “Witch of Envy”; the Demon King had taken advantage of her inferiority complex and jealousy towards the heroine and turned the original Luciana into his unwitting pawn…

… which did not happen here because a certain maid maniac had come and changed everything.

And that same maid had also unknowingly purified then domesticated the true final boss, who was now living a carefree life eating and sleeping at the Luthorburg estate. He was simply a family dog now, what a good boy!

Annemarie, completely unaware of this deeper development, had serious concerns as to how the future would unfold without the heroine or the midgame boss.

At that moment, Annemarie felt a hostile gaze at her back; unlike Luciana who lived a sheltered life in her family’s territory, Annemarie had grown up in the capital as one of Christopher’s fiance candidates and had developed a rather keen sense for hostility.

She sneaked a glance from the corner of her eye to find the source of the gaze, and she found…

(I see. Of course you would be the one to stare me down like that.)

…Olivia of the duke-ranked House Rankdol.

“Your Highness is truly without equal. Even after putting in my best efforts, I am completely unable to keep up.”

“What are you saying? You placed fourth through those efforts. I think that’s something you can be proud of.”

“No, not at all, Your Highness. As the daughter from a ducal family, I did not put in enough effort as suits my rank. I must strive to work harder and follow the example of the ladies from the marquis-ranked Victirium and count-ranked Luthorburg.

“You think so? I think that kind of ambitious behavior is wonderful to have.”

Her golden locks swayed as she conversed with Christopher, but while Olivia was all smiles with the Crown Prince, her eyes looked past him and over to the girls; the cold, hostile gaze seemed to bore holes into Annemarie… no, at Luciana.

Of course Luciana remained completely unaware, and she continued chatting happily with Luna.

(Olivia was watching Luciana-chan with hostility during the Spring Ball, too… If Luciana-chan is the substitute heroine, then will Olivia become the midboss substitute?)

In the game, Olivia should have scored second highest, behind Christopher, but the unforeseen performance of Luciana and the reincarnated Annemarie had dropped her down to fourth.

Originally, Christopher was first, Olivia was second, and the heroine was third. Annemarie should have been nowhere near the top rankings; in fact, she was supposed to have caused a commotion by accusing the heroine of cheating after seeing Christopher praise her.

And in that scenario, Olivia was the one who stood up for the heroine; from her lofty second place ranking, Olivia strongly chastised Annemarie for her behavior… But such an outcome seemed impossible for the current Olivia.

(Half of it… is my own fault.)

After all, the current Annemarie had become the antithesis of her ingame portrayal; no longer was she simply the haughty but foolish rival character to the heroine.

And this same Annemarie had surely stolen a march on Olivia in many other ways.

However, Olivia was now targeting someone else with her resentment: Luciana. The frustration of losing to an upstart from the infamous House Luthorbroke was perhaps a far greater concern than losing to Annemarie, someone who consistently produced exemplary results since childhood.

(Olivia is probably thinking something like “It’s bad enough that I lost, but to lose to that penniless girl of all people?!” Well, I can’t say I don’t understand her, but…)

Annemarie could not help but sympathize knowing how things originally were in the game, and yet Olivia was simply being unreasonably jealous. Objectively speaking, Annemarie had done nothing wrong; she had taken the second place ranking without any tricks and purely through her own hard work and effort.

(Hm, it’s hard to predict what may happen in the future since we already deviated this much from the original plot. I guess for now, the only thing I can do is pay closer attention to her…)

“Good morning, students. Please take your seats at once.”

The teacher of Class A, Regis Bowenbert, entered the classroom, his eyes as sharp as they were yesterday. Without delay, the idling students hurried to their seats.

“I trust that you all have confirmed your exam results, and I will be returning your exams later… For now, we will be having our orientation, so pay attention and follow closely.”