Otome Game no Heroine de Saikyou Survival (LN) - Book 5: Chapter 3

Royal Sorcery Academy

「……Haa……haa……」

A girl was clasping her hand together as though in a prayer inside a room where the lacey curtain was closed tightly. She then separated her hands and exhaled her breath roughly.

The window was made from glass, a rare thing even in this world that developed with sorcery and alchemy in the place of science. Even a slightly distorted small glass should cost one gold coin. A glass with the size that was sufficient for a window that covered almost half the wall of a room could only exist in the mansion of a very influential noble.

Even the maids had been shut out from inside this spacious room. The girl calmed her breathing, soaked the tip of his pen with ink, then she started scribbling on one of the papers that were scattered around.

*Knock knock……*

「――My lady Clara. His highness is coming to visit, will you go meet him?」

「……Please let his highness pass.」

The maid asked for permission from outside the room. Clara paused for a moment before she gave such reply.

Several minutes later, Ervan was allowed to enter by himself under the justification that it was the visit of the lady’s fiancée. He saw Clara who was still continuing to write roughly that the table that was made from white stone became dirtied from the ink. He hurriedly ran to her side.

「Clara-, you mustn’t do this, you have to rest.」

「Er-sama, can’t we put a stop to the field trip for observing the knights’ exercises? As I thought, the result of [danger] keeps coming out no matter how many times I divined it.」

「Clara……you used your Gift again.」

The Gift that Clara obtained from the spirit was called [Foresight].

That ability could guess what would happen in the future with high probability, but this ability was a bit different from the [Premonition] that most people imagined.

The true nature of this ability was that it applied calculation and close scrutiny to the information of the current situations that Clara possessed and picked out the information that had high accuracy. That information than was used for even more calculation to draw out a [Foresight] that had a big probability of coming true.

What Clara sought was the ability to [know the options like in otome game]. The amazing part of this ability was that even if she herself didn’t know whether an information was right or wrong, the ability could pick out the information that had high degree of accuracy based from the situation.

Clara combined that with the knowledge of her past life and the information of [otome game events] that originally she should have no way of knowing to perform a Foresight with high degree of accuracy.

But using this “Gift” demanded “compensation”.

There would be no problem if she used the ability for simple things like [tomorrow’s weather] or [the dinner’s menu], but human’s action was hard to predict and if she tried to predict what would happen in several weeks about something that involved many people, tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of calculations would be performed in her brain and each time that happened would inflict a considerable damage to Clara’s brain. This ability was steadily shortening her lifespan as human.

「You can’t use that ability too much. Besides it was you yourself Clara who said that [the future is constantly changing]. Because of your [Foresight], we have made request to the knight order and also elite bodyguards to be on guard, so surely everything will be okay.」

「But……」

But in the game, Ervan often [got involved with the heroine] when he fell into danger.

An event in game that would happen every time in every route was [the field trip outside the academy]. The difficulty level of the “danger” that occurred there would change depending on the capture targets’ positivity level. Many things could happen there from the easiest situation like [the attack of man-eating bear] to the hardest difficulty of [demon race’s attack].

Clara hadn’t seen the heroine directly, but she had ordered her subordinate to check on the heroine. Based on the report, she didn’t think that the heroine had raised that much positivity level, but the worst possibility could still happen.

The knight order would be there and the son of the supreme knight commander, Clara’s big brother would also be there, so there wouldn’t be any problem if what happened was only something like bear attack, but if something with high difficulty happened and the heroine didn’t conveniently awaken her light element and subsequently obtained [Sacred Magic], there was a chance that even Ervan would get seriously injured.

But, Clara couldn’t make too much demand, like adding even more knights from knight order to be guards just because she wanted to [avoid a game event with heroine from occurring].

Clara hesitated to speak and looked depressed. It made Ervan embraced her and pushed her head lightly on his chest.

「Er……sama?」

「Don’t look so anxious like that. This might be strange for me to say but, you see, I like the current hardworking and earnest Clara more than the perfect lady Clara in the past. That’s why, I’ll definitely come back safely for your sake.」

「……yes.」

The previous [perfect villainess lady] Clara became weaker after remembering the memory of her past life. Because of that she managed to close the distance with Ervan who also held weakness like her, but then Clara who had grown unstable felt Ervan’s warmth. But rather than making her felt reassured, it fanned up her uneasiness instead.

Ervan’s weakness was the proof of his low strength. How would he change when someone like him encountered danger and witnessed the heroine’s strength?

The girl whose outer appearance wasn’t similar with the [heroine] and acted more proactively than even the original heroine, was she really the heroine?

The [pink haired girl] with abnormal combat strength who appeared once more as Elena’s bodyguard, was she really not the heroine?

Either way, if the heroine was awakened to the Sacred Magic and became the [Saint], there would be no future where Clara could become happy with Ervan except by harming the heroine.

.

……*ding ding*

Ervan’s visit lasted for an hour before he returned home. After that Clara rang her hand bell to summon her maid.

「Hilda, gather everyone.」

「……As you command.」

One maid appeared and obeyed her master’s command. She called the three maids who served as Clara’s personal servants in the academy.

「From now I’ll have the three of you investigate the daughter of Count Mercis, Alicia Mercis. You understand what I mean by that aren’t you?」

「Of course, Clara-sama.」

「We haven’t forgotten our gratitude to you for picking us up.」

「We will definitely be of use to you.」

「……Yes.」

The maid Hilda answered first before the three maids answered in succession after her. But even though they were in the academy, Clara was still the main candidate to be the first queen in the future, and yet her close attendants made a somewhat boorish impression.

「……Bibi, are you still feeling pain?」

「……No, it just feel a bit hurt when I move, my lady.」

The black haired girl who was called Bibi shook her head a little without looking at Clara’s eyes. This person was originally already someone of a few words, but she was even more taciturn right now due to her condition that still wasn’t at her best as could be seen from the slight “burn” mark that peeked out from her sleeve and collar, though the injury was gradually vanishing due to [Cure] treatment on her.

「For my lady’s sake……we will kill her.」

Bibi replied with halting words. The other three also nodded quietly in agreement.

All of Clara’s close attendants here were people she found thanks to her Gift――Foresight. They were “assassins” from the former north frontier district branch.

When she found them, Hilda was seriously injured on her stomach, while Bibi was heavily burned on several parts of her body.

They got into a battle with an adventurer called “Ash Crowned Princess” in an abandoned mine near the capital. There Bibi treated Hilda who got seriously injured. That was how the two of them managed to survive even though they got trapped in flame. After that they accidentally found a crack deep inside the abandoned mine and three people including the injured managed to escape.

They were able to return to the base that they had prepared and hid there, but they were unable to receive any satisfactory treatment and could only wait for their death there. The one who saved them from such fate was Clara who personally came to find them.

The other two maids, Doris and Haiji were also survivors from the former northern frontier district branch, but they were recruited by Clara using Hilda to save their family that got destitute because of the assassin guild branch’s destruction.

Her objective by making these girls her ally was the removal of the heroine.

And then――

「Will you be able to make contact with those people?」

「Yes, Clara-sama. That person is moving behind the scene to take care of that. ……Either way, she won’t be able to show herself in front of other people because of her appearance after all.」

「True……」

Clara didn’t say much and simply nodded seeing the complicated expression of Hilda who had gotten betrayed by “her” once.

She survived thanks to her mythril equipment and resentment even after getting her whole body burned in flame. She was living only with her hatred toward “Ash Crowned Princess”.

(……That girl)

The pink haired girl――adventurer Aria who was said to have obtained a blessing.

With that power she repelled a rank 6 monster and fought equally against Carla who obtained a Gift.

The girl who possessed the same hair color like the heroine of the otome game [Falling in Love on the Silver Wings]. If that girl was actually really the heroine, it would be difficult to remove her.

She couldn’t imagine that girl getting involved with the otome game like the “heroine”, but even if she wasn’t the otome game heroine, the girl that Melrose House secured would surely appear in front of Clara as “heroine”.

At the beginning Clara’s objective was to survive……and to avoid getting judged.

But, if the heroine became the saint just like in the story, the holy church and the populace would want to make her become the next queen. Clara who was the princess from an old royal family who was [fitting to be the first queen] would get removed by their political pressure. She finally noticed such possibility with her power of Foresight.

Before she would want to run away if it was possible to run. But……she couldn’t run away anymore.

Because Clara had fallen in love with Ervan…….

(……I won’t hand over Er-sama to anyone.)

She wouldn’t hand him to the heroine or even that pink haired girl. She didn’t care no matter what kind of method she had to take in order to do that.

Like that, Clara even used her own lifespan as compensation to walk the same path like the “villainess lady Clara” of the otome game under her own volition.

「Ufufu」

After the opening ceremony finished, that girl let out a meaningful chuckle while rolling on the bed at the dormitory for the middle ranked noble that got assigned to her by the academy.

「Ervan-sama, he was so lovely just like in the “CG”……. They didn’t have the chance to speak much but, Rockwell-sama and Mihail-sama were also lovely. Fufu, of course Seo-kun is also cute though.」

In the academy, almost all the students were living in dormitory.

Even so there was clear difference depending on the house rank. Low rank nobles were assigned a single room in a large mansion that could house ten-odd people. The high ranked nobles each built a mansion where their children could live. For middle-ranked noble like her, there were multiple houses with the same floor plan that the academy had prepared and each student got assigned one of those houses where they could live there with their servant.

――*knock knock*

「My lady, I have finished preparing the bath……」

「I’ll go in later. You can leave now.」

A maid spoke to her from behind the door. The girl’s words for her were curt.

Alicia Mercis……the girl who introduced herself with the pet name [Licia] that she made up by herself. She too was given a maid from Mercis House to take care of her daily necessities other than the butler Seo. But Licia only allowed that maid who was of the same gender like her to take care of the lowest priority matters.

「……I hate woman. I’m cute, so they keep bullying me. But, “you” are different. You are teaching me so many things.」

The girl pulled out a magic stone from the charm bag that was hanging over her chest and lifted it up before her eyes. That magic stone had cracked and only had half of its original size.

When she was seven years old, she found this treasure while cleaning the ditch as part of her public service activity. When her finger got hurt by the stone’s chipped part, the magic stone showed her a radiant “future”.

The girl had no money, nobody to protect her, and only grey colored future where she could only wish that a nice master would buy her for her pretty face. But then the magic stone showed her [the path to become a princess].

She had already forgotten her own actual name as something trivial.

In order to completely become the original “heroine” who vanished to who know where, Licia copied the heroine’s gesture, way of talking, attitude, and even expression that she learned from the magic stone. At present she had even forgotten what her personality was before all these. Licia was completely taking the place of [Alicia].

“Knowledge” that was dyed with the resentment of a woman who lived in the past was flowing into her from inside the magic stone. But, it was her who was deciding how to use and what knowledge to choose.

But the woman in the magic stone was wishing to be chosen by the crown prince and lived a sparkling life.

「So annoying……」

She slammed the magic stone that was trying to push her into the crown prince route on the edge of the bed. After that only pure information was flowing freshly into her from the wound on her fingertip. Licia nodded in satisfaction.

「That’s good……after all the one who choose is “me”.」

The orphan girl who had nothing and lived side by side with death.

The feeling of terror and despair that she felt during that time, even after she became an adopted daughter of a middle ranked noble and became happy, it was still unable to satisfy her endless “hunger”.

Licia’s weapon was only the “knowledge” inside this magic stone and the “pretty face” that was passed down to her from her mother who was a hostess.

For Licia, filling up her unending hunger was more important than even her own life. She enveloped the magic stone with her bloody fingertips as though it was a priceless treasure and quietly prayed.

.

「Aa, I want to love……I want to be loved lots and lots」