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

I looked at Senior Lorelia, who suddenly crossed her arms and acted all friendly, with a dumbfounded expression.
No, it’s true we’re on friendly terms. But not this much, right?
“Play along.”
In response, she smiled gently and mouthed the words so only I could see.
Since the others were knight trainees nearby, she probably thought whispering quietly would go unnoticed—like a drunken move.

“Well, even if you say that all of a sudden.”
Right now, I’m being called the Saint’s boyfriend.
And here she is playing both sides.
Those who know better understand it’s fake, but most people at the academy aren’t in that ‘know better’ group.
“If you do this, I’ll really become trash.”
“Don’t worry. There’s a way.”

Really?
If it were Violet speaking, she’d tell me not to talk nonsense.
But since it was Senior Lorelia, I decided to trust her—for now.
“Meeting here, Senior.”
“Hmm, indeed. Were you watching the match?”
“Yes. I heard the junior swordmaster was on a winning streak.”
“Come to think of it, you were close with the junior swordmaster.”
She linked her arm with mine casually, showing off, and I narrowed my eyes for a moment.
But the guy over there, who looked like a typical villain in a romance novel, was flustered, so I had no choice but to play along moderately.

“Sis, this is…”
As I naturally responded to Senior Lorelia, the romance villain-looking guy who had been waiting a while approached and asked.
“Ah, meeting your lover in such an unexpected place. I got excited without realizing it. Let me introduce you. This is my lover, Adam Smith, from the Kingdom of Leon.”
So this is what they call international romance.
Watching Senior Lorelia shamelessly introduce me like that, I finally realized she really is a noble.
People can be this shameless?

“Now, Adam. This is Lizel. She’s my cousin, so don’t get too jealous.”
Every line she said made me doubt if this was really Senior Lorelia.
No matter how much she didn’t want to show Lizel losing,
could a person really change this much?
I even started to think this might be her true self.
“Adam… no way that’s—”
“Yeah, that’s right.”

Look at her—Lizel’s flustered face after hearing my name—and the sly grin on Senior Lorelia’s face.
Is this the romance villain young lady?
“How did you get the Saint’s lover?”
Lizel tried to swallow the voice that wanted to burst out, then lowered it sharply and looked at Senior Lorelia.
Her expression said: “What the hell is going on here?”
Lorelia enjoyed that expression, flipping her hair with a gesture you’d only see in comics.

“Don’t you think I’m kind of charming?”
“……”
“……”
Lizel, I, and even their bodyguards looked on in disbelief, but Senior Lorelia showed no change in expression and spoke brazenly.
“So I took him.”

I was taken too, so that’s only natural.
Seeing her say that, Lizel and the bodyguards silently stared at me.
“……”
I couldn’t meet their eyes.
Honestly, it was embarrassing.

“He’s too good to be taken by the Saint. Even that junior swordmaster can’t beat him. Being from outside the Empire is a hurdle, but love is...”
Was she trying to humiliate me?
Watching Senior Lorelia eagerly gilding me next to her, my image of her was crumbling.
“You said your name is Adam…”

Lizel had reached the point of ignoring Senior Lorelia entirely now.
“Yes, that’s right.”
“I heard you’re skilled with a sword and second-in-command.”
As the mood shifted, Lorelia closed her mouth.
If that was the plan, I wanted to tell her it was a brilliant move.
“That’s true skill-wise. Why do you ask?”

But I doubted she meant that.
So, tossing out a bait-like question, pretending ignorance,
Lizel smirked and provocatively said to me,
“Then how about a duel?”
As expected. She did want to fight the junior swordmaster. That wasn’t just talk.

“Sure.”
Seeing her confident expression, I nodded and answered.
Then I glanced at the back of the guy who said he’d rent the arena.
“How should we do this?”

I asked Senior Lorelia what to do with this guy.
“Well, obviously—”
Without hesitation, she said,

“Crush him completely.”
Seeing that, it seemed like she had a lot built up.
The defeat sword technique doesn’t work well against a first-time opponent.
If you don’t know their style, you can’t estimate properly.
So, this first-time opponent was basically a hard counter to defeat sword.

“Ugh!”
But that’s only if the opponent had some skill.
With a junior swordmaster, a few clashes give you a rough estimate,
but at this level, no understanding of the opponent’s sword style was needed.
“Hmm.”

Just watching how the opponent moved was enough
to fully analyze and dismantle them on the spot.
“Take this!”
Lizel, the villain candidate, gritted her teeth.
Well, no wonder.
I was disrupting the flow of her swordplay bit by bit.
If she’d just been smashed in one blow, «N.o.v.e.l.i.g.h.t» that’d be one thing, but being completely toyed with like this would frustrate anyone.
But—

“Hmm.”
No matter how angry you get, what can you do?
I expressed it lightly with my sword.
I wasn’t just blocking her attacks—I was stopping the very attempt to attack.
Just by watching her footwork and arm and joint movements,
I could predict her next move.
Based on that, I blocked what she wanted to do outright.
So to an outsider, it might look like a fierce fight.
In fact, some spectators were impressed.
Still, it was a little disappointing.
“Ugh! No? Then take this.”
Lizel’s eyes were locked only on my sword, with no time to look around.
If she looked, she’d realize even more that she was being toyed with.

“This bastard…!”
But if this was her best,
she probably had no time for that.
“At this level, you’re near the bottom of the academy.”

That wasn’t a psychological attack.
It was an unintentional, light evaluation.
Since I sparred with many and knew most first-year sword students well after the junior swordmaster,
I was probably the person who knew the academy’s lowest levels best.
She was from a branch of the Empire’s top duke family, so her innate mana and sword development were decent.
But the person wielding it was being led by the sword, not controlling it.
She didn’t truly understand swordsmanship, couldn’t stop the flow from breaking mid-fight.
Honestly, she was bottom-tier in the academy, so I just said it like it was.
“What?”
She went berserk, grinding her teeth and rushing forward,
but her unstable sword path shook even more, and without me interrupting, she basically self-destructed.
Wow, she was losing all on her own.
Isn’t this the true defeat sword?

“……”
Watching Lizel self-destruct, I glanced at Senior Lorelia.
The toy’s broken—what now?
Lorelia seemed to notice the look and hesitated a moment, then lightly made a throat-cutting gesture.
She really had a lot bottled up.
We decided to play with her about thirty more minutes.
Lizel couldn’t last thirty minutes and lost by herself after ten.
She fled shouting the villain’s classic line, “Ugh, just wait for next time!”
So it was just me and Senior Lorelia left. No need to beat around the bush, I decided to ask right away.

“So, what’s the way?”
Even without a subject, Senior Lorelia nodded knowingly and answered.
“Hmm, well.”

Then, confidently, as if it were nothing, she declared,
“Just say you confessed first.”
I was stunned for a moment and could only repeat dumbly,

“Excuse me?”
What kind of nonsense was this?
Was it some high noble technique passed down in the Empire?
Since it might be a cultural difference, I trusted Senior Lorelia and waited for an explanation.
And the explanation was—
“If you seduced first, you’re trash. But if the other person falls first, that’s skill.”

That made no sense at all.
“…What are you saying?”
“Hmm. If I just fell for you and confessed first, it’s not your fault.”
“What kind of trash talk is that...”

That garbage talk made me slip a little and speak honestly.
“Hmm, I guess you could say it’s trash talk.”
Still, the shameless nod made me understand why she was the original romance villain young lady.

“Isn’t that just trash talk?”
“You’re surprisingly romantic, junior. But what’s wrong with a capable man having many women?”
“…Excuse me?”
That sounded insane, but also, I realized she wasn’t conservative but romantic.
“Women care for several men if the man is capable. No matter how much Daisy is a Saint, she doesn’t have the right to monopolize you.”

This is medieval fantasy.
Even the king, who lives under the queen’s control, had no concubines but had two wives.
So, just like Senior Lorelia said,
a man blatantly hitting on others is trash,
but a man whom women approach first is an alpha male.
The kind you hear about in stories!
“So, dating is allowed.”

I almost nodded at her confident statement,
“Others think that way too, right?”
“…Probably?”
At Lorelia’s last glance away, I narrowed my eyes and stared at her again.

While waiting for the Pope, who we would meet again soon,
the saying “words without feet travel a thousand miles” proved true.
Sitting quietly waiting for the Holy Nation’s delegation,
a rumor naturally reached their ears.
The rumor was that Lady Lorelia of the Duke Jaika family had a boyfriend.
That alone was common gossip at the academy!
But the moment they heard it was the Saint’s lover, silence filled the room.
So Violet couldn’t help but tilt her head.
‘What’s this?’

What nonsense was this?
Violet blinked her eyes and thought.
No, our boss—
‘Didn’t she say she didn’t want to get involved in romance plots?’
She didn’t even look at the flower arranging club.
So why was she playing both sides between the romance female lead and the villain(?) young lady?
Was she really going to go from a romance extra to the main character in a romance extra story?

“Hmm~”
While thinking that, a strange snort came from the seat next to Violet.
Turning her head with a giggle, Violet saw—
“Are you mad?”
“Not at all.”

She was mad.
Even if it’s fake, she’d be angry if the cheating was so obvious.
…Right?
Too embarrassed to ask, Violet could only wait awkwardly.