I Think My Fiancé Has Regressed

Chapter 93: Side story – Lonely Gourmet Young Lady (1)

It’s been a year and seven months since I entered the National Academy of the Kingdom of Leavrov.

When I first entered the Academy, I had high hopes for myself, but after a number of unfortunate events, they have now been tempered.

There was definitely a time when I thought I could change my own destiny.

It’s because, despite all the work I’ve done to change my fate, I’m faced with the reality that I’m following the plot of an existing story, and it feels like all my efforts have been for nothing.

Duchess Ariana’s attempted poisoning of Miss Sierra happened at a tea party shortly after I entered the Academy.

Also, it is the main event of the game I was reincarnated into, 『Academy Light Romance』.

This incident is the decisive moment for First Prince Alexandros, the fiancé of Arianna Anastasia, to realize that he has been deceived by the evil Arianna all this time.

At the time when I was developing this game, I naturally thought of it as something Ariana would have added and just made it into a passing story without much thought, but when I actually experienced it myself, it turned out to be a truly absurd incident.

What can I say, I am Ariana Anastasia, the villainess Ariana.

Of course, I’m not the real-life, in-game character Ariana, but I’m clearly operating as my own self.

And, of course, I didn’t put poison in Miss Sierra’s tea; rather, I planned to befriend her and ask her to cure Alex-or rather, Prince Alexandros-of his heart condition.

However, shortly after the tea party began, the main event, which had become a matter of course, had written itself into my suspicions that I had tried to poison her.

Of course, at first, the consensus was that I wouldn’t have done it.

After all, I was a duke and she was a commoner, albeit a special one who could use light magic.

There is a future where she is later recognized as a saint and saves the life of Alex, no, the First Prince Alexandros, but that is unknown at this point.

And I’d like to think that I’ve been living my life as quietly as possible since I found out about my previous life.

There have been a few times when I’ve gotten into arguments with uneducated youngsters who treat Charlotte like she’s a ghost, or when I’ve gotten angry at Kael’s older brothers for criticizing him without knowing the subject matter….

I don’t think it’s been enough to make enemies, really, just a few times, and the arguments were just civilized enough to talk about at the Young Lady level.

…Anyway, that’s probably why so many of them trusted me and stuck by me for a while after those incidents.

Even though most of them turned away while I was in denial and frustrated.

Charlotte, my closest friend, still tried to stay by my side until the end, but she deliberately kept her distance from me because it could have reflected badly on her or Prince Eamon.

For a while after that incident, I had no reason to care whether or not I fell out of favor.

After Miss Sierra collapsed after drinking the tea I gave her, my fiancé Prince Alexander took her to a treatment facility.

For some reason, when we met again, he never listened to anything I said after that.

It was as if he listened to everything I said dryly and stared blankly into space as if mesmerized by something.

As if triggered by some sort of trigger, when Miss Sierra appeared in the vicinity, he abandoned me and started walking towards her.

I realized that the main story of the game, the Academy Light Romance, had already begun.

Otherwise, there’s no way Miss Sierra would collapse from poison I didn’t put in her, or Prince Alexandros would behave as if he were a game character.

Fortunately or unfortunately, none of the main characters, except for Alex, seemed to be outwardly unharmed, such as Charlotte, Prince Eamon, and Kael.

I used to be afraid that one day they would suddenly change their personality and turn on me like Alex did.

No, I’d rather they didn’t.

My biggest fear would be that at some point I would lose this memory and identity and become Arianna Anastasia, the villainess of the game.

I’m actually really scared because I feel like I’m walking on thin ice every day.

Now that Ariana’s bad ending is already set in stone, I can’t wait to be jilted by Prince Alexandros and kicked out of the Academy as soon as possible.

I’d rather spend the rest of my life in a small cottage I secretly built in the village of Colonna than become a puppet with no identity.

Of course, the story says that Ariana’s doom is still two months away, so in the meantime, I’ll have to spend my days feeling like I’m walking on thin ice.

“Haaaaa….”

There was a time, before I joined the Academy, when I thought I could definitely change my future.

Even though I was painfully aware that my second life was in a game and not in real life, I still felt like every character next to me was alive and breathing.

Ariana Anastasia’s father, Duke Dominic Anastasia, and her mother, Duchess Natasha Anastasia.

Her fiancé, Prince Alexandros, her younger brother, Kael, Alex’s half-brother, Prince Eamon, and his fiancée, Charlotte.

All of them were characters in the game, but I was purely thinking of them as living people, so naturally I was thinking of them as a future that I could act upon.

In retrospect, I don’t think I was that arrogant.

The idea that a character in a game could defy the game system was just silly.

In my previous life, I was a game developer and collapsed from overwork, and it took me so long to realize this simple truth….

Maybe it was just a frustrating wish that I was reincarnated as Ariana Anastasia in the first place, and envisioned myself marrying Prince Alexandros…

…Well, enough ruminating.

I can’t change the past, and the events that will come are beyond my control.

Now is the time to focus on the few things I can feel happy about.

I have no recreational outlets, and all of the young people I could have talked to over tea have grown distant.

What little amusement a defeated woman who has had her greatest pillar of her heart, Prince Alexandros, stolen by another woman, can do….

It’s safe to say that I’m almost addicted to it these days.

It’s an embarrassing hobby for a girl, but there’s nothing more enjoyable than satisfying a one-dimensional need.

So, I quietly and stealthily walked to the cafeteria to fulfill my need for the day.

This is the time of day when there are the fewest students in the cafeteria.

“…Okay.”

After all, it’s still before the end of fourth period, so the cafeteria is almost deserted.

Not bad conditions for my secret hobby.

Thinking so, I quietly entered the cafeteria and picked up a plate from the buffet.

Without hesitation, I walked confidently to the pasta section with my plate in hand.

“…Gulp.”

After picking up a mountain of alio olio pasta with tongs, I rolled as much pasta as I could and filled my plate to the brim.

It’s a good thing that the cafeteria at the Royal Academy of Le Havre has a variety of options to balance a student’s diet.

Because on days like today, when I’m feeling down, there’s nothing better than shrugging off my nutritional imbalance and indulging in an all-you-can-eat bowl of carbohydrate-filled al dente pasta.

There was nothing like an appetite to satisfy the most one-dimensional of human needs.

After piling a plate with what would have been a staggering amount of pasta for Elise to see, I carried it away and took a seat in a corner of the dining room.

It didn’t need any extra sauce, as it had already been prepared by a top chef who had been brought in for the academy that only the children of nobles attended.

The smell of fragrant olives and the savory aroma of roasted garlic already tickled my nose.

The pure alio olio pasta shone beautifully on the plate, with no unnecessary shrimp or clams to spoil the flavor.

If I had to nitpick, there was only one thing that was a little disappointing….

Let’s forget about that for now and focus on the meal.

I placed a spoon on the plate, and then topped it with a few strands of pasta that I picked up with my fork.

Then I spun it around and around, letting it spin on top of the fork.

“Haaaaa….”

After inhaling the aroma of the pasta once again I popped that wad of dried pasta into my mouth without hesitation.