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

In fantasy novels, there is always a persecuted group—the dark mages.
Sometimes dark magic is used for good in some stories, but in most, they boldly act as the embodiment of evil, and this world is no different.

To be honest, they were truly formidable.
Depending on the situation, defense was usually easier than offense.
And when the defender is a huge force like the empire, it becomes even harder for the attackers to succeed.
Even while oppressed by every nation on the continent, they tenaciously survived, broke through the empire’s defenses, and stormed the academy.
They had incredible persistence.
If only they had put that effort into something else, they probably would have succeeded.
I never understood why they risked their lives focusing so fiercely on dark magic.
“Dark mages are here too?”
Yes, apparently some of those bastards were here as well.
It was really a shitty situation.
Usually, dark mages hang around near the romance fantasy heroine, so why the hell were they causing trouble in this remote outpost?

“Well, here’s what happened...”
Bandits—no, those who claimed to be residents of Violet Village began to tell their story about what had happened in their village.
“It was about a year ago.”

Though a sad story to the people involved,
if it were a game, it would be the kind of story you’d spam the skip button on—common and overused.
One day, travelers suddenly appeared.
They introduced themselves as pilgrims who had completed a sacred pilgrimage and asked if they could stay for a few days.
Though the village was a remote countryside, even in Leon, where the sword was prominent, the goddess was still more revered than the sword.
And there was a continent-wide tale that if you refused shelter to those who had come from a long journey for the goddess, her wrath would fall upon you.
So, the village chief and the residents lent the pilgrims the village hall and provided food.
But that was the beginning of tragedy.
They were not pilgrims but dark mages.
They cast mental magic centered around the village hall, enslaving the villagers.
The once beautiful village, full of violets, soon began to bloom with another flower.

“It’s called salvia...”
I turned to look at Prince Ellen as one of the villagers spoke.
“Why?”
“Flower arrangement club, you know. What kind of flower is that?”
“...It’s only been half a year, so I don’t know much yet.”

Ellen averted his gaze awkwardly, and one villager cautiously answered.
“It’s used as an ingredient for hallucinogenic drugs.”
I was dumbfounded.
Even if it was a bit far from the city, to think that dark mages were growing drugs in a village 3 to 4 days away by carriage from the kingdom’s capital!
I thought only the empire had such problems, but our kingdom was in bad shape too.

“The villagers lost their sense of self and became slaves of the dark mages, making hallucinogens.”
“We don’t know their exact purpose, but it’s definitely not for a good cause.”
“Please, save our village!”
The villagers prostrated themselves, pleading to be saved, and Ellen, as expected, was ready to accept the quest.
“Wait a moment.”

I quickly grabbed Ellen’s arm to stop him from accepting the quest.
“Why?”
“First, there are three suspicious points.”
“What?”
“First, if the villagers were all brainwashed into slaves, why are some of them not brainwashed and able to ask us for help?”
Unless they had awakened some magic resistance, the people before us were ordinary rural folk.
If the entire village was brainwashed, having anyone request help was suspicious.
Without a valid reason, this looked like a trap by the dark mages.
“That’s because some of us went out to buy daily necessities...”

The villagers offered this as a somewhat reasonable excuse, but whether it was true or dark mage brainwashing, our party, full of swordsmen, could not tell.
“Second, how did they know we would pass by and wait?”
“They just happened to want to ask help from a passing noble.”
“Really?”
Having lost their village and living as bandits, they resolved to ask a noble for help.
That part was believable.
But...

“Instead of ambushing a passing carriage, wouldn’t it have been faster to go find a nearby lord?”
A short distance ahead was the territory where we planned to stay.
But instead of heading there, they risked their lives pretending to be bandits, stopping carriages.
“Th-that’s...”

The villagers fell silent at my words.
The sudden silence made me frown.
“Answer me.”
As I stared down the hesitant people, a girl about ten or so stepped forward, sobbing.

“Th-that’s...”
Despite Ellen’s sharp look, I said,
“Crying won’t solve everything.”

We were dealing with matters involving royalty.
Honestly, even if the villagers died, I only cared about Prince Ellen’s survival.
“Give a valid reason.”
I looked past the girl to the adults behind her.
Maybe they got the message not to appeal to emotion by using a child.
One adult sent the girl back and, after hesitating for a long moment, spoke cautiously.

“Violet Village is a settlement of slash-and-burn farmers.”
That explained why they couldn’t seek help from a lord.
The village was illegally established, so seeking help from the nearby lord would have only brought punishment.
“Is it a criminal village?”
“No, it’s just that during past bad harvests, they couldn’t pay taxes...”

Whether true or not, there was no way to confirm here.
And not paying taxes was itself a crime.
“Adam, I still want to go.”
Seeing my frown, Ellen spoke with the righteous expression of a romance fantasy male lead.
The villagers brightened.

“Then, the most important question. Why does a prince want to go hunt down dark mages?”
The villagers hung their heads in response to my question, and Ellen looked puzzled.
“Huh?”

Why did he act as if that was obvious?
“Isn’t it obvious?”
He even said it himself.

“It’s not.”
The Leon royal family learned the sword from childhood.
More so, Prince Ellen was the strongest in the world.
There was no need for him to take risks by going to dangerous places.
“Why not send others to handle it?”

We had already left comfortably for the academy, but if things went wrong here, returning to the academy would be delayed.
Well, if it became urgent, teleporting via the magic tower was an option.
But it’s better not to create unnecessary trouble.
“If we send a message to the kingdom, the people in charge will come quickly—maybe within a day. The prince doesn’t need to go himself.”
Dark mages were a headache across the continent.
So any decent nation ran special forces to deal with them.
Leon had personnel specialized in hunting dark mages.

“We were just returning to the academy, not traveling to hunt dark mages.”
“But still.”
“There’s no urgent reason.”
“B-but!”
Someone from the villagers shouted at my words.
Since a royal and high noble were talking, I wondered if they interrupted because they were young and underestimated, or because it was really urgent.
If the former, I thought I should show them the fear of nobles.
“The reason we were so rude is because the dark mages were about to offer the villagers as sacrifices!”

At the villager’s urgent cry, Ellen and I exchanged glances.
“……”
“……”
Ellen’s expression seemed to say, “See? Told you.”
It looked like it was really urgent.

The nature of both curses and dark magic was that they could draw power beyond their limits by using sacrifices.
But unlike curses, which only used their own belongings as sacrifices, dark mages could freely use things that weren’t theirs.
This was one of the main reasons dark mages were persecuted.
Sacrifices with greater cost could draw stronger power, so dark mages often sacrificed other people’s lives and souls to cause incidents.
“We’ve already sent word to the kingdom. Reinforcements are coming.”
So I immediately contacted the commander, but we decided to check the situation ourselves first.

“We’re only going to check.”
Ellen nodded and answered my words.
“Alright. Don’t you trust me?”
“No.”
“……”

Without hesitation, that came out, and Ellen’s mouth dropped ➤ NоvеⅠight ➤ (Read more on our source) open.
“I do have something to back it up, so just follow my lead.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
It was true.
The empire was the continent’s center now.
Its main stage in the romance fantasy was also the empire.
So important incidents were bound to happen there.
Dark mages hiding in the fringes growing drugs couldn’t possibly threaten us.

“Don’t act first. If something happens to the prince, we’re all doomed.”
“Alright.”
With Ellen’s completely untrustworthy answer,
we headed to Violet Village with a young villager as a guide, accompanied by twenty guards.
“Fuck.”

At moonrise, Violet Village was performing a suspicious ritual.
Wearing black robes, those who advertised themselves as dark mages tied up people under an altar in the village center.
They burned piles of purple flowers around it.
“Beastmen?”
In the middle of the altar lay a bloodied beastman unconscious.
Anyone could tell the dark mage ritual was in full swing.

“Go!”
Without hesitation, Ellen started running.
…Huh?
“Hey!”

At Ellen’s sudden rush, I and the guards were a step behind, starting to run after him.
“You told me to trust you!”
“But you said you didn’t trust me anyway!”
If you don’t trust me, why do you just do whatever you want?
When we were younger, or before entering the academy, it wasn’t like this.
It must all be Daisy’s fault.

“What do we do?”
Hearing the flustered guard behind me, I answered by drawing my sword.