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 39

Chapter 39: Total Shitshow

Thinking about parent-teacher conferences always takes me back to my old student days in my previous life.

It was me, my homeroom teacher, and my mom—the three of us in this super awkward combo talking about my future and stuff.

I seriously hated those things.

With my parent right there, I couldn’t really speak my mind. The teacher was obviously being careful too, and my mom never knew how far she could push.

So the whole thing just dragged on in this weird, tense atmosphere. Pure hell, nothing else.

But honestly? Compared to what I’m dealing with now, that was nothing.

This right here—sitting with my fiancée, me, and the duke’s daughter for a three-way showdown—is on a whole different level of bad.

“…… …………”

Yeah, so right now I was smack in the middle of a total shitshow.

“Thanks for taking the time today.”

“No big deal.”

The second we sat down on the sofa, the room’s temperature felt straight-up wrong. Nah, scratch that—it wasn’t the temperature, it was the air itself that was messed up.

Fran was sitting there with perfect posture, a flawless smile plastered on her face.

Meanwhile Marilyn had her legs crossed all casual, elbow propped up, just staring over at us like she owned the place.

“…… …………”

We were literally just facing each other, yet the tension was thick enough to choke on.

Every time our eyes met it felt like sparks were literally flying. Both of them were smiling, but somehow that made it even weirder.

And me? I’d basically turned into a decoration sitting next to Fran.

I was staring off into the distance, doing everything possible to avoid eye contact with either of them.

“So… shall we get to the point?”

After a long silence, Fran finally spoke up.

“There are a few things I’d like to confirm.”

“Sure, go ahead.”

“I’ll be asking about your relationship with the crown prince, so please answer. If there’s anything you don’t want to talk about, just say so.”

And then the Fran interrogation began.

How they met, his background, personality, habits, little gestures, down to the exact details of their conversations—she dug into everything.

At first Marilyn was kinda into it, happily trash-talking the crown prince, but after a while she started getting annoyed and just skipped answering some questions.

Still, Fran kept pushing, so things got a little hostile, but the conversation kept moving.

“……”

The whole time I just sat there like a statue.

I was supposed to be watching to make sure they didn’t actually start fighting, but let’s be real—I wasn’t doing jack shit to help.

“I’d like to know about any personnel the crown prince can personally use. Do you have any names from the academy that come to mind?”

“No clue. Whenever I meet that guy he always makes sure we’re completely alone.”

“I see. So his dirty intentions are completely obvious.”

“Yeah, he’s total trash. A guy like that being crown prince is honestly a joke.”

“Yes. I completely agree.”

Both of them smiled sweetly at each other.

Normally they were at each other’s throats, but every now and then they’d suddenly be on the same page like this. So maybe their compatibility wasn’t actually that terrible.

After a long back-and-forth like that, Fran suddenly stood up.

“Excuse me for a moment.”

“What’s up?”

“I have another small matter to attend to. I’ll be right back.”

She said that and left the room.

Lately I’ve been dumping basically all my work on her, so her miscellaneous tasks were probably piling up.

I felt super guilty about it, but whenever I tried to help she shut me down hard.

Fran was probably some kind of useless-human-manufacturing machine.

“Hey, wait a sec—you didn’t tell me anything about this?”

The moment the door closed, Marilyn immediately shot me a glare.

She’d been all relaxed and smirking earlier, but the second Fran left she flipped to full-on pissed mode.

“Why the hell did you call your own fiancée here? What—you trying to rub it in my face or something?”

“Absolutely not.”

“Then what?”

“Because it’s necessary.”

Yeah, okay—I could see how from Marilyn’s perspective, having my fiancée sit in on this would look super weird.

But to me? It felt completely normal. Hell, trying to handle anything without Fran around was straight-up impossible.

“More importantly, why is that girl running the show? I’m from the ducal family, you’re from the marquis house, and she’s just from a count house, right?”

“Rank doesn’t matter here. And you can think of Fran’s opinion as my opinion.”

When I said that, Marilyn’s eyes widened for just a second. Then she elegantly recrossed her legs, put on that smug smile again, and went,

“You’re totally whipped, aren’t you? My dear hu-s-band.”

Right at that moment—DON!

A loud thud came from the other side of the door, like someone had just smacked something.

Wait… did Fran hear that?

It felt exactly like getting caught cheating. A cold shiver ran straight down my spine.

But Marilyn didn’t seem to care at all and just kept going.

“So? What’s your plan? You’re not seriously gonna break off the engagement with that guy and marry me, are you?”

“That’s something Fran… uh, never mind.”

The second I started to say it, I felt this murderous aura leaking through the crack in the door.

No doubt about it. She was definitely listening.

I really didn’t want to suspect my own fiancée, but stepping out on purpose just to eavesdrop on our conversation? That was 100% something Fran would do.

“Ahem.”

I cleared my throat and changed the subject.

“Our final goal is to get the engagement canceled. And we’ve already come up with a plan for it.”

The plan we came up with was pretty simple.

“Just create a situation where the other side wants to break it off themselves.”

Yeah—make it so the crown prince has no choice but to call off the engagement.

“Impossible.”

Marilyn shot it down instantly.

“I’ve tried everything. Nothing works. The crown prince and the ducal family both want the same thing. He wants me, they want the power that comes with the crown prince. So no matter how much of a piece of shit he is, they’re not canceling anything.”

“Yeah, you’re right. Not as things stand now.”

“If you’re gonna go that far, why don’t you just become king yourself? That’d be way faster.”

Me? Become king?

“The marquis house could never pull that off.”

“Then how about staging a coup or something?”

She said it so casually, like it was no big deal—and the fact that I couldn’t tell if she was joking or dead serious made it even scarier.

“Hmm. That actually sounds like a pretty good idea.”

The one who agreed with that insane suggestion… was Fran.

She’d somehow come back without me noticing. She sat down next to me with perfect grace, then gave a sweet little smile.

Wait—why’s she sitting so close now?

Before there’d been like a fist’s width of space between us, but now our bodies were pressed right up against each other. Our shoulders were completely touching, and it even felt like she was leaning into me a little.

Cold sweat ran down my back from the silent pressure, but I barely managed to speak.

“Please don’t tease me. There’s no way I could become king.”

“But I’m being completely serious?”

“Huh?”

“I’m saying it seriously.”

She didn’t drop the smile even a little.

“If I become queen, I can move the power however I want.”

“Oh really?”

Something about Fran’s words must’ve rubbed Marilyn the wrong way, because she switched which leg was crossed and said,

“If you become king, then the queen’s gonna be me, right?”

She shot Fran a super aggressive look.

But Fran wasn’t about to back down.

“Fufu, that’s quite an interesting thing to say. Ol-sama’s fiancée is me.”

“If it’s polygamy, then I have the higher rank. So obviously I’d be the queen.”

“It seems there’s a misunderstanding… Ol-sama will not be marrying you.”

“But this guy proposed to me, y’know?”

“Ol-sama?”

“That is absolutely a misunderstanding!”

“But you said you’d take me as your wife, didn’t you?”

“………………I did say that.”

Sweat was pouring down my forehead like a waterfall.

Both their stares were stabbing right into me—I seriously felt like they were about to split me in half any second.

Ugh, my stomach was churning so bad. I might need to start carrying antacids everywhere. I’d probably run out no matter how many I had.

“…………”

Probably because I looked so pathetic, Marilyn let out a little laugh.

“You’re way too whipped, don’t you think?”

“…Yeah.”

“Whipped? More like completely stepped on and crushed.”

“…Pretty much.”

I couldn’t even deny it.

No matter how you looked at it, I was easily the weakest one here.

But Fran didn’t seem satisfied. With a huge smile on her face and her eyes looking up at me, she said,

“Ol-sama? I’m a very sensible wife, you know?”

She rested her hand lightly on my thigh, quietly applying pressure while saying it.

My brain completely froze from fear, so I just nodded super fast over and over.

“…Yeah. Fran’s thoughtful, elegant, and a beautiful woman.”

I just kept praising her nonstop.

“Fufu, as expected of Ol-sama.”

“Hey, are you being forced to say that?”

“Shut up with the unnecessary comments.”

Fran seemed really happy with my words—her cheeks were bright red and she was holding her face with both hands.

She’s cute, but also terrifying, and scary, and terrifying, and I can’t go against her.

That’s my fiancée for you.