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 40: The Villainess

I’m gonna break off the engagement with the crown prince.

And for that plan, I decided to spread some bad rumors.

But not about the crown prince—about Marilyn.

That was the key to this whole strategy. If I had to name it, I’d call it the Villainess Operation.

Of course, at first I did think about spreading dirt on the crown prince instead.

But that would basically be suicide.

If it ever got out that I’d damaged the royal family’s reputation, I’d be looking at execution—no joke. Forget doom flags; my head would literally roll. That’d totally defeat the purpose.

But when it came to Marilyn’s bad rep, things were different.

So I decided to frame her as the villainess.

Here’s how the plan was supposed to go.

First, spread nasty rumors everywhere so people start seeing her as “that villainess girl.”

Once that image sticks, the vibe should naturally shift to something like…

“How the hell is the crown prince marrying a woman like that? It’s messed up.”

And once it gets to that point, it’s game over for them.

Even if the crown prince tried to defend her, protecting a fiancée everyone’s calling an evil woman would just make people think he’s the same kind of trash.

For a royal, that’s unacceptable. It’d shake his own position too much.

So he can’t just casually step in to help her anymore. The moment Marilyn’s bad reputation takes hold, keeping the engagement going becomes damn near impossible.

That was the whole point of this operation.

By the way, I changed up the content of the rumors depending on the place.

At the academy, the rumor was that the crown prince’s fiancée tried to kill herself.

At the Adventurer’s Guild, it was that she’s planning to treat adventurers like crap and restrict their rights.

At the church, the rumor said she wants to strip away women’s rights.

And to the regular townspeople, I spread that the crown prince’s fiancée treats commoners like slaves.

Whether any of it was true didn’t matter. People say there’s no smoke without fire, but once the smoke starts rising, the fight’s already decided.

The results were way better than I expected.

The very next day after I started spreading them, the rumors were already all over the academy.

“Hey, did you hear about that thing…?”

“Yeah. Attempted suicide is seriously messed up, right?”

“Totally messed up.”

I caught some girls from my class whispering in the corner of the hallway. They kept saying how bad it was, but honestly, they looked kinda excited about the gossip.

The speed those rumors spread just shows how much attention the crown prince and the duke’s daughter get—good or bad.

—Perfect.

Things were going smoothly with the plan.

That said, there were still a bunch of things to worry about.

Since this would make an enemy of the ducal family, the source of the rumors absolutely couldn’t get traced back to me. Plus, I had to keep constant tabs on what the crown prince was doing.

But Fran seemed to have everything under control on both fronts, so it looked fine.

For the rumors, since the content was different at the academy, Adventurer’s Guild, church, and among the common people, it’d be pretty hard to pin down who started it.

Even if it eventually got figured out, as long as I could buy enough time until the crown prince broke off the engagement, it wouldn’t matter.

As for watching the crown prince, Fran had sent out scouts who were apparently tracking his every move.

She said info just keeps coming in even without me doing anything.

Gotta hand it to Fran—damn impressive.

By the way, those spies were apparently from the marquis house, people they normally already have planted at the academy.

I had zero clue about any of that, but whatever. Not like thinking about it would help me.

Oh, and one more thing—turns out there are several hidden passages in the academy.

If any of the scouts ever got caught, the plan was to hide in those passages to shake off pursuers.

Meaning the academy itself was cooperating too.

And another thing: Fran had apparently convinced Alenaria and set up a solid connection with the church.

They were already on cooperating terms, but she used this chance to tighten things up even more and make the whole setup rock-solid.

At this point I wasn’t even sure anymore whether she was moving to save Marilyn or just using her as a stepping stone to boost the marquis house’s power.

Anyway, because of how effective the operation was, the crown prince had started acting way more careful.

He wasn’t approaching Marilyn like he used to; apparently he was running around in a panic, desperately trying to stop the rumors.

But while he might be able to squash things inside the academy, places like the adventurers or the church—where noble influence doesn’t reach as easily—were a lot harder to control.

The rumors kept spreading wider and eventually became impossible to ignore.

All I had to do was sit back and wait for the right moment.

Still, there was one thing that kept bugging me no matter what.

—It was about Marilyn herself.

She was the one who’d get hit hardest by this plan.

Getting called a villainess by everyone, having people whisper nasty things behind her back. She probably wouldn’t even be able to walk outside normally anymore.

If the common people spotted her, I had no doubt stones would start flying.

I’d seen plenty of nobles get publicly condemned like that since coming to this world.

Sure, nobles have insane power, but the second they end up on the receiving end of criticism, it’s over. All the pent-up resentment from the people comes crashing down at once.

—I wonder if she’s really gonna be okay.

She seems super tough, so probably yeah, but just to be safe, I figured I should go check on her.

While listening to the rumors buzzing around me, I headed toward the classroom where she was.