I Was Reincarnated as the Villain Who Confines the Heroine in an Eroge World, But for Some Reason I'm the One Getting Confined by the Heroine Instead - Chapter 4-5.1

Chapter 4: Side Safira Hartz

I—Safira Hartz—was a cursed child.

A child born after my father forced himself on a maid. A child who should never have existed. A cursed child who was shunned by the family and treated as if she weren’t there at all.

Back when my older brothers and sisters were still alive, they kept me shut away in a detached shed.

All I was given was the bare minimum of food and the bare minimum of education—just enough to keep up appearances.

I wasn’t allowed outside. The people in the mansion treated me like an eyesore, like something they weren’t supposed to look at.

My golden hair especially was the symbol that proved I was an illegitimate child. My siblings would deliberately cut it, or yank it out by force. The bullying was awful.

—I had lost all hope in the world.

I didn’t know why I was alive.

No one looked at me.

No one touched me.

I was nothing more than a breathing thing.

Then one day, during my once-a-month trip to the church, I met him.

A commoner boy whose name I didn’t even know. A complete stranger.

That boy was strange. He looked at me with kind eyes, then slowly walked closer.

And then he reached out his hand and pulled me out of the shed.

Slipping past the guards, weaving through back alleys, we ended up in a huge vineyard.

He invited me into the little house there and smiled.

Then, with a mischievous grin, he said,

“I’m a villain, you know. A villain who exists only to keep you locked away.”

“A bad person?”

“Yeah, a bad guy.”

He really didn’t look like one, but he certainly was mean.

Because the very first thing he did, to a girl he’d only just met, to a girl who had nothing, was proudly say something like that.

—I’m a villain. A villain who exists only to keep you locked away.

I didn’t fully understand what those words meant. Honestly, I barely understood them at all. Even so, they stabbed deep into my heart.

Before I knew it, my chest was pounding.

If he existed only to keep me locked away, then it was fine for me to say I existed only to keep him locked away.

—Yes, this is fate.

In the end, I only talked to him for a very short time, but that tiny moment changed my entire world.

From that instant, my whole world became Ask-kun.

Every path Ask-kun walked was everything.

Every sight Ask-kun saw was everything.

Every smell Ask-kun breathed in was everything.

Every breath of air Ask-kun took was everything.

Every word Ask-kun spoke was everything.

Every drop of blood Ask-kun shed was everything.

Ask-kun’s very existence was everything.

The person called “me” could not exist without him. I lived only because he existed, and without him I could not live at all.

No—that’s not it.

A world without him simply does not exist.

That’s why I decided.

—I will become someone worthy of standing beside Ask-kun.

Even if people call me a cursed child, even if no one loves me, even if no one acknowledges me—none of that matters.

As long as Ask-kun acknowledges me, everything else can go to hell.

For that one precious thing, I threw myself into my studies and into martial training with everything I had.

I didn’t care what people around me thought. My siblings disappeared one by one, the heir was reduced to a single person, and the way the duke’s daughter was treated changed completely—I just kept pushing forward.

All because I wanted to catch up to Ask-kun.

Ask-kun.

Finally… finally you’re turning fifteen.

This time, this time we can continue from that day.

Five years ago you locked me away.

Now it’s my turn to lock you away.

I won’t let you go anywhere.

No matter what happens, I won’t let you leave.

And then the two of us will finally be complete.

—

Chapter 5.1: The Duke’s Daughter Stands Way Too Close and Feels Way Too Heavy

At the Royal Hearts Academy, the educational policy is excellence in both academics and martial arts.

Of course students must study hard, but mastering the magic power inside the body and learning martial techniques is also a required part of the curriculum.

While the homeroom teacher was explaining this, I was doing my best to avoid the ferocious gaze flying at me from the front.

“……………………”

The owner of that gaze was, needless to say, Safira.

The girl who had mistaken me for her prince on a white horse was completely ignoring the lesson and sending me scorching looks.

She was supposed to be beautiful, yet for some reason my spine kept freezing over. There was an indescribable intensity coming from her.

—In the original story, she was a much cooler heroine.

She didn’t trust people, barely spoke, and pushed everyone away. I think losing her siblings to an incurable illness had made her unable to trust anyone.

In the original game, she and the orphan protagonist slowly opened up to each other through their similar circumstances, and a heartwarming story unfolded.

That was how it was supposed to go…

“……………………………………”

The gaze she sent me now had none of that coolness. It was passionate—so passionate it felt like no matter how many hearts I had, it still wouldn’t be enough.

I honestly have no idea why her favorability is this high.

Five years ago I locked her up once, and we barely even talked. There shouldn’t have been a single thing about me worth liking.

—It really has to be a case of mistaken identity.

The most realistic explanation is that, completely unrelated to the kidnapping, something happened in the last five years that saved her.

If that’s the case, who on earth is the real prince on a white horse?

Since Luxol Grey, the original protagonist, apparently isn’t him, the chances are high it’s some noble—or at least someone of high status.

This world’s class system isn’t so strict that using casual speech to someone of higher status gets you executed on the spot.

Still, values and social circles differ greatly between nobles and commoners, and a duke’s daughter usually only associates with other nobles.

Hurry up and show yourself already, I grumbled inside toward the real prince.

Then the teacher gave the order, “Everyone outside.”

Practical training was apparently about to begin.

That part was fine, but the whole class started moving toward the training field at once, and there was no way Safira wouldn’t take that chance to approach me.

“Ask-kun, let’s go together!”

Safira grabbed my arm with a beaming smile, completely ignoring the stares around us.

“Come on, hurry!”

“Uh, sure.”

I was about to correct her one more time and say she had the wrong person, but she clearly wasn’t going to listen, so I shut my mouth.

How am I supposed to make her believe me?

Thinking about that, I headed with her to the field outside the school building.

The training ground was about the size of the Tokyo Dome.

It wasn’t a neatly leveled courtyard— the ground was uneven, like a rocky area that had been forcibly cleared.

“Everyone, gather in front of this boulder!”

As the teacher’s voice echoed, the students lined up around it.

“Magic power is energy inside the body. You can’t release it outside, but you can use it to strengthen your flesh. That’s what our ‘martial arts’ and ‘magic control’ classes are for. Of course they’re mandatory.”

The teacher stared at a boulder about as tall as he was, then slowly raised his sword.

“I’ll show you an example first. Everyone who enters this academy already possesses a certain amount of magic power. By the time you graduate, you should all be able to destroy a rock this size without much trouble.”

With that, he gripped the sword with both hands.

“Watch closely.”

He swung it down in one clean motion.

The next instant, a thunderous boom rang out as if lightning had struck, and the boulder split perfectly in half. Dust floated up softly, and the students around it instinctively stepped back.

—Scary.

The same scene happened in the original story, but seeing it in person is on another level. Rocks really break that easily?

“Now it’s your turn. Give it a try.”

After the teacher’s demonstration, the students took turns.

While everyone glanced at each other nervously,

“I’ll go first!”

A cheerful-looking shaved-head boy jumped forward.

He took the sword from the teacher, stood in front of another boulder, and readied himself with both hands.

“Here goes!”

He swung down hard. The rock didn’t budge an inch.

In fact, the recoil numbed his hands, and he held back tears of pain.

—Yeah, that’s about normal.