I Got Reincarnated as a Villainous Noble, and When I Tried to Create an All-Male Academy to Avoid a Bad Ending, for Some Reason the Gender Ratio Reversed?

Chapter 22: Adventurer’s Guild

On a day when the academy was off, I decided to head over to the Adventurer’s Guild.

The place sits in one corner of the royal capital. Normally you’d take a carriage from the academy, but this time I chose to walk.

I just felt like strolling around the city for the first time in a while.

So that’s how I ended up walking through town with Lucina, but…

“Hey… aren’t people staring at us?”

“…Yeah.”

We were definitely drawing eyes.

Right now we were passing the big fountain in the center of the city, and people walking by kept staring over here and whispering about something.

Had word gotten out that I’m from a marquis house?

Today I came incognito without any guards, so if this turned into a scene it’d be bad.

“…………Hm?”

While I was thinking that, something suddenly caught my eye.

A kid playing near the fountain. In the child’s hands was a little wooden carved figure.

“Huh?”

Lucina let out a small sound despite herself.

And honestly, who could blame her? Because the doll was wearing the academy uniform, it had a really mean glare, and the face looked straight-up like a villain’s.

In short… it was supposed to be me.

—The Orufusen doll.

That was the only way to describe the thing this random city kid was hugging. My brain couldn’t keep up with the situation.

“No way… did those guys do this…?”

There’s this one girl in our class who’s like a super fanatical believer.

She occasionally invites me to these weird “believers’ gatherings,” asks me to sign wooden plaques, or wants me to say something for the followers.

And lately I think she asked if I could come look at their “sacred object” or whatever… but no way… right?

I really, really hope the person who made that doll isn’t that classmate. That would be legitimately creepy and way too much trouble.

“Eh, is that okay?”

“Just ignore it.”

Lucina seemed bothered by the doll, but I averted my eyes from reality and kept walking toward the Adventurer’s Guild.

Speaking of the Adventurer’s Guild, in the original story it was supposed to have this total roughneck-den vibe.

Smelled like blood, lots of drunk people knocking back booze.

And the eager newbie adventurers would get picked on by veteran drunks and end up in fights—basically zero public safety.

That was the mental image I had when we arrived in front of the building, but…

“It’s… clean.”

The reality was completely different from what I expected.

The outside was solid stone construction, heavy and imposing, yet the walls didn’t have a single speck of dirt, and there were even flowers decorating the entrance.

For a second I thought it was a church or something—that’s how neat it looked.

Inside was the same. The floor was polished until it shone; there wasn’t a trace of blood, not even dust.

And at the reception counter there was a whole row of uniformed reception girls, giving off the atmosphere of a department store more than anything.

—Is this really the Adventurer’s Guild?

While I stood there stunned,

“Why do you look so surprised?”

Lucina, standing next to me, asked.

“This is all your doing, isn’t it?”

“Mine?”

“You subsidized medical fees for injured people and improved the dorms, right? That increased the number of new adventurers.”

“…Oh, yeah.”

“And to keep that momentum going, the marquis house poured in funds for an image-improvement campaign. To erase the stereotype that adventurers are just a bunch of roughnecks. Thanks to that, even more people joined and it became harder for things to get rowdy. Honestly… impressive doesn’t even cover it.”

Lucina nodded like she was genuinely admiring it.

I see. So Fran was secretly doing stuff like this behind the scenes.

I had literally no idea until this very moment, so I was pretty shocked.

“You always say you’re bored after school, but you’re quietly pulling off amazing things, huh?”

“…Guess so.”

For some reason my evaluation was suddenly shooting up, even though I personally hadn’t done anything. My fiancée is just way too capable, that’s all.

That’s exactly why I’m free after school.

Thanks to her, I get to live the properly lazy, villain-noble lifestyle.

Anyway, the Adventurer’s Guild had become sparkling clean, but the people inside it were still a different story.

“……………”

Lining the walls were these muscle-bound guys.

Some silently drinking, others quietly maintaining their weapons—there was this unique heavy atmosphere hanging in the air.

It was quiet, but the pressure was so thick you couldn’t just walk up to them casually.

—Scary.

But Lucina acted completely unfazed. She wasn’t crushed by the silent intimidation at all; she just walked straight toward the reception desk.

I followed behind her, trying not to tremble.

“How may I help you today?”

The young woman at the counter greeted us with a bright smile.