"...So. What exactly is going on right now?"
My room in Dragon Hall, the Academy's most luxurious dormitory.
Sitting half-reclined against my bed, I pressed my palm to my forehead as I looked at the feast(?) laid out before my eyes.
"Can't you tell? It is the finest elixir soup, brewed from the leaves of the 'Binghua (Ice Flower)' that only grows in the eternal snow of the North. It should help suppress that dreadful black demonic energy dwelling in your heart, even if only a little."
With her arms crossed, Sylvia pointed her chin at a silver bowl steaming with warm heat.
"I cannot entrust Your Lordship's noble body to some broth boiled by a mage wench. My Lord, please partake of this instead. This dawn, I hunted a first-class wyvern in the mountains behind the Academy and made porridge with its heart. Overflowing with yang energy, it will instantly restore your weakened stamina."
Elara refused to back down either, thrusting forward a blood-red bowl of porridge radiating a fierce, gamy stench.
It had been one day since I one-shot a Class A magical beast in a monster subjugation practical, thanks to the black mages' excessive loyalty. The entire Academy had been turned upside down by rumors that 'the young master of House Rothschild wields black magic,' but as for me, I had actually vomited a bucket of blood due to mana reflux (actually stress from a system penalty) and collapsed in my dormitory.
And so began this suffocating 'sick care battle' between these two mad dogs—after blowing up the rooms on either side of mine.
"...Put them both away. I'm nauseous enough as it is; if I eat something like a wyvern heart, my esophagus will melt."
When I irritably pushed both bowls away, Sylvia's and Elara's expressions simultaneously twisted into pitiful looks.
"Cailan, please stop being so stubborn! You unleashed way too many curses while hunting that monster in the forest yesterday! I can see your life force hitting rock bottom, so why do you keep refusing medicine!"
"Lady Sylvia speaks the truth, My Lord. Your noble pride, which refuses to show weakness before us, is something we can understand all too well... but please, drop your guard at least when we are by your side...!"
(The two women's synchronized brainwaves)
'Even after secretly cutting down your lifespan to slay a monster for our sake, you act out the role of an arrogant, cold villain to the end, claiming that taking medicine feels like receiving pity! What a lonely and sublime sacrifice!'
"No, I really won't eat it. Please, just leave me alone..."
I covered my face with both hands. This crazy delusional interpretation engine seemed to have no off switch.
It was while I was holding my throbbing head.
Knock, knock, knock—.
At the front door of my dormitory—left standing alone like a sore thumb since the collapsed walls had been blocked off with ice walls—an exceedingly elegant and rhythmic knocking sound rang out.
"Did my order not to enter this room sound like a joke to you, Benjamin?"
Just as I was about to vent my irritation, thinking it was my attendant.
"The attendant called Benjamin is unconscious outside the door. Hearing rumors that the heir to House Rothschild had turned his dormitory room into a mess and was holed up inside, I decided to grace you with my presence."
Creak—.
The door opened, and a female student with dazzlingly splendid golden hair elegantly pinned up walked in with a relaxed smile.
A gorgeous red mantle draped over her Academy uniform, and on her chest, a "Student Council President" badge.
The First Imperial Princess of the Empire and the absolute authority of the Academy—Aurelia von Chronos!
"...Your Imperial Highness, Princess Aurelia."
The moment I called her name with a start, the air in the room froze over at a terrifying speed.
Shhhk—!!
The first to react was Elara. The moment she saw Aurelia's face, she unleashed a beastly killing intent and drew the longsword at her waist halfway.
She had every reason to. Elara was the Emperor's illegitimate daughter. In other words, the noble First Imperial Princess Aurelia standing before her was the 'half-sister' who had tormented and scorned her all her life.
"What gives you the right to step in here so carelessly, dog of the Imperial Family?"
Elara's silvery-gray eyes shone with a frigid light.
"Hoo."
Aurelia didn't so much as twitch an eyebrow before Elara's killing intent. Rather, she unfolded her fan to cover her lips and laughed lightly, as if amused.
"I thought you were nothing but the Empire's shame, but you've become quite the useful hunting dog, Elara. I never dreamed that you would end up under Rothschild's mad dog."
Aurelia's golden eyes swept past Elara and locked onto me, lying in the bed.
"I've heard all about yesterday's exploits in the forest, Cailan del Rothschild. I never imagined you were hiding such a terrible and immense power all this time while feigning mana deficiency."
I felt a chill run down my spine.
Aurelia was one of the hidden masterminds whose true intentions were unreadable even in the original story. A dangerous woman with monstrous ambition who would stop at nothing to acquire useful pawns.
The fact that she came to see me personally meant she had either judged me a dangerous element after witnessing my 'fake black magic,' or she had come to put a leash on me to exploit me thoroughly.
"So."
I forced myself to hold back my cold sweat and leaned crookedly against the bed, arrogantly lifting my chin.
"To what do I owe the honor of Your Imperial Highness gracing a stinking patient's room? My room's marble is too fine to waste, so keep it brief."
"Impudent! How dare you to Her Highness...!"
The knight guarding behind Aurelia tried to shout, but Aurelia raised her hand to stop him.
"It's fine. One must endure the barking of Rothschild's mad dog."
She approached the bed with elegant steps. (Of course, Elara and Sylvia blocked her path like an iron fortress.)
"Cailan. That dark power you harbor, and the military might of having the Northern Magic Tower (Sylvia) and a Swordmaster (Elara) under your command.
I like it very much. You would make an excellent pawn to keep my idiotic brothers who are eyeing the Crown Prince position in check."
Aurelia's captivating red lips moved as she hurled a deadly proposal at me.
"Come under me. I'll give you a seat in the Student Council. If you grovel at the Imperial Family's feet and wag your tail, I'll turn a blind eye to whatever you do in the Academy. How about it?"
At her proposal, Sylvia and Elara fiercely furrowed their brows.
"Imperial bloodlines are all arrogant and vulgar. How dare you treat my fiancé as a pawn. Want to be frozen to death?"
Sylvia growled as she condensed 7th-Circle frost in both hands.
But Aurelia remained composed.
"Successor of the Magic Tower, your engagement to Rothschild is merely a political arrangement between houses.
Surely you don't truly love that trash and stay by his side? The power of the Imperial Family could offer House Kraus quite favorable terms."
This woman was treating me as nothing more than 'a thug with some strength but easy to handle.'
[Warning! The 'Villain's Pride' is being tested by the Imperial Family's temptation!]
[Condition: Reject the Princess's proposal in the most insulting manner possible. If you submit, a penalty (bleeding and cardiac arrest) will be activated.]
Fuck.
They want me to snap at the Imperial Princess? What's going to happen when the Imperial Knights come barging in later!
But as the system before my eyes began squeezing my heart, I had no choice.
"K-kuh... Hahahaha!!"
I twisted up my bloodless lips and laughed like a madman, making the room resound with my cackles.
Because I laughed too hard, a tearing pain surged through my chest, and finally, with a hacking cough, dark blood trickled down my lips.
"C-Cailan...!"
"My Lord!"
At the bizarre sight of me vomiting blood and laughing maniacally, Aurelia's golden eyes—previously so composed—shook for the first time with confusion.
I roughly wiped the blood from my mouth with the back of my hand and drove a beastly, frigid gaze into Aurelia.
"Come under me? Wag my tail?"
I smiled grimly and thrust my upper body forward from the bed.
"For some hothouse flower to strut about just because she wears an Imperial badge. You, a mere wench, would grant me a position? Don't delude yourself, Aurelia."
"You... do you think you can handle the consequences of such madness?"
For the first time, killing intent seeped into Aurelia's voice.
"Handle? Ha!"
I snorted and pulled out the cockiest villain lines from my brain without any filter.
"I crawled into this Academy not to play along with you Imperial brats' make-believe.
I came to devour this entire Empire and bring every bastard who looked down on me to their knees beneath my feet."
I tapped the marble floor at Aurelia's feet with the end of my cane and declared arrogantly.
"The worthless pawn here is you, Princess. Until I personally break your arrogant neck and drag you down from the throne...
keep your neck clean and wait."
Silence.
It was an insane moment where a mere heir to a Ducal house openly declared 'treason against the Imperial Family' before the First Imperial Princess herself.
The Imperial Knight standing behind had turned deathly pale and rigid.
[Status: Successfully acted the part of the 'True Mastermind Who Dreams of Treason'! Penalty exempted!]
[Hidden Achievement unlocked!]
I survived. I got past the penalty.
But inside, I was crying bloody tears, thinking, 'Dad, what do I do now? I just declared treason against the Emperor!'
I thought the furious Aurelia would bombard me with magic to kill me.
But.
"...Ha."
Instead of flushing with anger, Aurelia let out a strange sigh, alternating her gaze between her own toes and my blood-stained lips.
(Aurelia's Internal Auto-Translation)
'Despite looking like a dying patient, that arrogance without a shred of trembling before Imperial power!
The terrible black demonic energy he unleashed (yesterday's magic stone incident) wasn't mere bluff.
This one is a monster harboring a deep and vast darkness truly capable of overthrowing this Empire! He is on a completely different level from the worms who have groveled before me all my life...!'
In Aurelia's golden eyes, a bizarre 'desire for conquest' and 'interest' beyond anger began to burn and cling with sticky intensity.
"Cailan del Rothschild."
Aurelia folded her fan and lightly moistened her lips with her tongue.
"To dare speak treason to an Imperial Princess like me—you bark rather freshly for a mad dog. Fine.
I shall watch with my own two eyes just how far that ambition of yours can go."
She turned her body elegantly and glanced back at me.
"If you covet the throne, then I will make sure to bring you to your knees, panting beneath my feet.
I shall summon you to the Student Council again soon, so don't die—stay alive."
Hiding her strangely flushed cheeks, Aurelia left the dormitory with her guard knight in tow.
Slam—.
The door closed, and the silence of a stormy eve once again descended upon the room.
"...Hey. You hear that?"
I looked up at the ceiling vacantly and muttered.
"The Princess said she'd make me pant under her. Now even the Imperial Family is plotting to kill me..."
But the two mad dogs at my sides were fixated on something entirely different.
"My Lord! Didn't that vulgar Imperial bitch just act like a bitch in heat toward you!
Daring to place you beneath her feet—let me chase her down and cut her throat this instant!"
"Elara is right, Cailan! Imperial Princess or whatever, those eyes just now were the eyes of someone who wants to devour you whole!
It's because you act all dangerously for no reason that these shitflies are swarming you!"
Sylvia and Elara grabbed my bed from both sides, exploding with fury.
"No, when did I seduce her! I just cursed at her and said I'd destroy the Imperial Family!"
"That is precisely the problem, My Lord! You don't even realize that your rough, savage wildness stimulates those crazy women's desire to conquer...!"
Ah.
The world is out to get me.
To the original male protagonist (Lumen), I'm treated as a cosmic horror that will destroy the world; the Academy's black mages revere me as the incarnation of a demon god;
I was held up as a sublime martyr by my yandere guard knight and witch fiancée.
And now even the arrogant First Imperial Princess has marked me as a 'bad man she must conquer.'
"...Save me. Please send me somewhere I can recuperate in peace...."
Day 3 at the Academy for the terminally ill villain.
All the Academy's major factions and power players had begun charging at me like madmen, aiming finally for my neck (or my lips).