I Became the Villain of a Romance Fantasy

32 – Unexpected guests (6)

“Good morning….”

To Richard, who awkwardly greeted me, I had no choice but to reply like this.

It wasn’t just because he had ill feelings for Richard.

Of course, it was true that I liked the fact that I wouldn’t be seeing Richard for the next year, but that was purely because he was the main character in ＜The Princess is Loved＞, so I was wary, but I had no reason to hate Richard when I first met yesterday.

As a reader of the original work, if I evaluate Richard Artuwen, the character in the novel, objectively, he is not a mere good man, but a guy with no angular character enough to think it’s okay to be friends.

To put it in a word, it’s a hogu.

Richard does most of the requests from people he is close to. This applied not only to Elena, the main character, but literally to all the characters who could be called ‘friends’ with Richard Artuwen.

Because of this, there was an episode where a magic tool that Richard had lent to an acquaintance became the cause of a certain anomaly and Elena solved it.

After the work is over, if you listen to the explanation from the person in charge of the Mage Tower, it is revealed that the magic tool was an artifact that was strictly managed even in the Tower of Twilight, and that Richard transferred it without any formalities under the authority of the tower owner.

Looking at this alone, it can be called a so-called carcinogenic character that causes incidents, but it can be said that it is a friend like a double-edged sword, as it lends endlessly necessary magic tools to Elena or fulfills various requests without any conditions.

You might think it’s because Richard has a crush on Elena, but considering the previous incident, you can’t say he doesn’t have a petulant temperament.

That’s why Richard was one of the people who decided that it was okay to be friends at the academy when I thought about breaking off my engagement with Elena.

Well, since he ended up getting engaged to Elena, now he’s just one of the targets to be wary of.

Unlike yesterday, just seeing Richard’s face didn’t make me happy. The fact that Elena wasn’t here right now might be a big deal, but because of the morning’s training, my mind was clear and I was under the firm control of reason.

That meant that even if we talked to Richard now, we would be able to talk to each other normally, but unfortunately we couldn’t talk to each other after the greeting we had just said.

Richard’s condition now did not look as good as when he first saw him, perhaps because of the pain of a broken heart.

The tidy appearance I saw yesterday, her hair was spiky to the point of wondering what had happened overnight, black shadows hung around her eyes, perhaps from not sleeping properly, and her eyes were red and congested.

But the awkwardness that settled between us wasn’t simply caused by Richard’s pathetic deportment.

When I first saw Richard, he looked like a madman.

At least, he didn’t look like a sane person as he ran with a bizarre face that didn’t know if he was crying or laughing while humming an exciting melody.

Richard himself was aware of how it must have looked to others, so he was unable to speak out so easily. But that doesn’t mean I can’t talk to him recklessly, lest the guy in front of me collapse completely in shame.

If it was yesterday, I wouldn’t have cared about whether Richard did it or not, but I didn’t feel comfortable thinking that I made Richard’s appearance that way, probably because it was reason rather than emotion that dominated his head now.

It didn’t make me feel more sympathetic than this, but it was also true that Richard’s image now overlapped with the image I had drawn of myself after leaving her, so I couldn’t treat her coldly.

I’d rather just ignore it when our eyes meet and just walk past it.

Thanks to you, I’m having an unwanted eye fight.

Fortunately, Richard opened his mouth before my sweat had dried up. When it was hard to put on, Richard looked at the sword placed in front of me and said, trying to hide his trembling voice.

“That, you’ve been amazing since morning. It looks like you train like that normally.”

“Since his family is like that. Come to think of it, wasn’t Confucius coming out of the Mage Tower as well?

“hahahaha. It’s just scratching the surface.”

Richard’s face began to return to the way I accepted it casually, thinking that I would mention the incident just now. After I was somewhat speechless, Richard didn’t seem to be uncomfortable with me anymore.

Should I say this is good for attachment?

Still, he was the fiancé of the one he liked, but Richard seemed to have no hesitation in treating me more than I thought. I don’t know if I’ve completely cleared my mind or if I’m trying to do that.

Well, whatever the intention, it was certainly easier for me to deal with than before.

By the time the awkwardness between each other completely disappeared, we had to end the conversation. In the distance, Ken was approaching to pick me up for breakfast in the morning.

It seems that more time has passed than expected. I’m sweating, so if I don’t hurry now, I might not arrive on time.

Richard apologized when he saw Ken approaching me.

“Oops, it looks like I was holding on to Confucius too much.”

“No. It was a good time for me too.”

Considering that I had a conversation with the owner of the next tower of twilight, not the original male lead candidate, it was a valuable time.

I said a brief hello to Richard and turned to where Ken was. We parted without saying anything like that.

As I walked to my room to change, I revisited my conversation with Richard.

The conversation with him consisted of talking about each other’s families, Krause and Erthuwen.

As for the common topic that he and I had, whom we hadn’t even met, what else could there be other than the story about Elena? But he never brought up about her during our conversations with me. To be precise, I was intentionally avoiding bringing up the story.

It’s definitely not the right subject to bring up in front of your fiancé.

I couldn’t believe that Richard had completely abandoned his attachment to Elena.

If he had been able to let go of the long-held romance in that short time, would he have been able to say that he loved her?

But even so, it was a little regretful that I hadn’t heard about her.

I’m sorry about Richard, but maybe I wanted him to talk about Elena while I was talking to him.

If it was before, I would have felt jealous about it and would have hated to hear it come out of someone else’s mouth, but what the hell was the change of heart?

I smiled quietly as I recalled what she had told me at the flower garden last night.

***

“Damian Krause.”

Richard muttered the name of the man disappearing before his eyes.

Krause’s name was well known to Richard as he had heard it a lot since childhood.

Since he is one of the main characters in heroic stories well known on the continent, most people who were born and raised in the empire probably know about him.

The legend of the hero who defeated the evil dragon ignited the hearts of many young boys. Richard was a child who liked to read books by nature, so he didn’t want to become a knight like the hero in the heroic story, but that heroic story was one of the storybooks he read a lot as a child.

But now, the name Krause was not just a name attached to a hero in a heroic story to Richard.

When his eyes met Damian for the first time, Richard was full of desire to shoot a magic missile at his head right away.

Reason, who ran outside, came to my house as soon as he saw Damian’s face, and when he retrieved Izzy, a sense of shame began to well up inside him.

Of course, to show this to her fiancé, it was to be shown to the person she most did not want to show, even if it was seen by others. If the words of his earlier actions were to come out of his mouth, then Richard’s mind would indeed have collapsed.

Richard wanted to leave immediately, but he had already said goodbye to him. If he stayed away like this, he would think what that man would think of him, and he didn’t want to die for his actions to leak into Elena.

Fortunately, however, Damian did not bother to mention Richard’s eccentricity and accepted his words gently.

That alone made Richard feel like the sun rising over Damian’s head was like a halo, signifying a saint.

“I didn’t think he was a bad person.”

Although Richard was still young, he was not lacking in insight to distinguish the good from the bad.

That’s why it’s not because he never revealed his private parts.

The conversation with Damian wasn’t long, but it wasn’t short either.

Even though he had only known him for a day, he seemed like someone he had known for a long time. The atmosphere was different from when we met at the banquet hall yesterday, but talking to him seemed somehow comforting.

As he left with his butler, Richard suddenly looked at his forearm.

“Are you a little taller than me, no, a little bit taller than me? Arms… Umm…”

Richard compared his forearm to Damian’s forearm in memory. It’s not that Richard’s body is weak. The higher the hierarchy, the higher the mana makes the wizard’s body in the best condition.

In particular, Richard’s body, which has reached the 5th rank, is not inferior to that of a strong man who has trained for a long time. But even so, compared to Damian, the heir to one of the leading military families in the empire, his body seemed lacking somewhere.

It is strange to compare Richard, who always reads books in the library, with Damian, who continues to train like today.

“Shouldn’t I have chosen a sword instead of magic?”

Richard shook his head while mocking himself.

Have you still not let go of your lingering feelings?

Couldn’t it be for such a simple reason that she chose Damian over herself?

There must be a more fundamental reason, something that you haven’t felt in yourself.

But that didn’t make me feel bad.

jealousy.

I’m jealous, but I can’t help it. It’s because I haven’t completely abandoned my lingering feelings yet.

Even so, Richard himself didn’t know what effect his conversation with Damian had had, but at least he seemed to feel more at ease than having been meaninglessly reading a book all morning.

With his mind completely relieved, Richard collapsed into his seat. The guy who stayed up all night without sleep and read books suddenly started running like a madman, so his body was strained. He no longer had the strength to endure the ever-closing eyelids. In the end, Richard let go of the string of consciousness he was holding on to, albeit weakly.

Jealousy and lingering feelings are all drowned out.

A faint smile appeared on Richard’s face as he closed his eyes.