The Mob Noble Who Got Reincarnated in a World Where Men Are Naturally Protected—So I Trained Like Crazy to Protect Girls Instead, But Their Love Got Way Too Heavy - Chapter 12: That Was a Deadly Poison

Chapter 12: That Was a Deadly Poison

That night.

As expected, after Wiz dragged him to the infirmary, the nurse immediately strapped him down for “emergency hospitalization.” But once they checked him over, it turned out the injuries were minor.

Meanwhile, Wiz had changed into her nightclothes and lay down on her bed.

Because she was a girl, the dorm was shared. The only way to keep some privacy was to pull the curtain around her bed, sealing herself inside a small, dark space.

In that little darkness, Wiz whispered,

“Tect…”

Just saying his name wrapped her in a rush of happiness.

“Tect… Tect, Tect, Tect…”

She repeated it under her breath, again and again, like a secret she couldn’t stop confessing.

And as she did, Wiz could no longer hold back what she felt.

“…I like you.”

Once she’d said it out loud, the feelings wouldn’t stop.

“I like you. I love you. There’s no one else like you in this whole world. No one who’d risk his life for someone like me.”

In this world, there were barely any men.

Here, a woman’s life held little value. Because of the hunger for men, women became cheap—one in a pile, easily replaced.

In such a society, women couldn’t defy men. Any woman who tried would be dragged down by other women before she even got close to one.

So women learned to fake themselves. They bent, hid, and wore servility they didn’t want, just to win a man’s favor.

But Tect… Tect cherished Wiz exactly as she was.

“Tect… ah, Tect… my angel, my god, my precious one.”

In the end, women were nothing more than slaves to men.

And yet, a boy like Tect—someone who should’ve been on a completely different level of value—had risked his life for Wiz.

That single fact alone was enough for her.

“I’ll be the one to protect you.”

Until now, Wiz had been the kind of girl who wasn’t even allowed near men. A noble in name, but at the very bottom. Among the heap of cheap, replaceable women, she was worth even less.

For someone like her, Tect’s hand reaching out was like divine food to the starving, sweet nectar poured for the dying of thirst.

“I’m still weak now… but no matter what happens, I’ll protect you, Tect. Let me devote my whole life to keeping you safe.”

Her eyes grew clouded with love.

Devotion from a boy—a man—was something that shouldn’t have existed. For a starving girl’s heart, it was no different from fire searing her entire being.

It wasn’t some extraordinary miracle. It was just that the power of Tect’s simple strategy—“be the boy who protects girls”—had been wildly underestimated.

The way ordinary people sink into gambling.

The way innocent girls lose themselves once they know a man.

The way even honest souls burn with need once they taste a drug.

In this world, a boy who gave himself to a girl was nothing less than a deadly poison.

“I love you, Tect…♡”

Drunk on her own love, Wiz drifted off into a quiet sleep.

The incident on the first day of school only spread in fragments—since relationships between classmates hadn’t fully formed yet.

“Oh? Garland got hurt in the Orc Forest?”

“Y-Yeah, seems so. Delphia brought him back to the infirmary…”

The girl reporting to Narcis looked uneasy.

Even if dealing with a knight family made things complicated, Tect was still a boy.

For the girls in class, even if they didn’t approach him directly, just having him there was a blessing. And if he was hurt, of course they worried.

But that was from a girl’s perspective.

Narcis, hearing the report, was thinking something else entirely.

“This… Delphia girl, who is she?”

“Eh? Ah, um… I’ve never really talked to her. She seemed like the studious type, though…”

“A studious girl… and a boy… and an injury in the Orc Forest, huh…”

Narcis sank into thought.

Then he muttered,

“A girl in my class who chose Garland over me, was it? …That does catch my attention.”

“N-Narcis!?”

The girl flinched at his words, panic flashing across her face.

Narcis only smiled faintly and replied.

“You all, look into this Delphia girl for me.”

“Y-Yes! We’ll check on her!”

“Sixty-eight points. Your answer could’ve sounded more natural. Anyway, I think I’ll go get something sweet. So—which one of you is waiting for their reward today?”

“M-Me! Today it’s me!”

“Then let’s go together. You’re cute. What’s your name?”

“Ah, um, I’m—!”

Narcis casually picked one girl and strolled off with her.

The others watched him leave, uneasy. Still, they exchanged words among themselves.

“I’ll help look into Delphia.”

“Me too.”

A heavy, stagnant air began to settle over Class 14—the lower-class group where Narcis, Tect, and Wiz all belonged.

Meanwhile, in Class 1—the top class.

Even there, the distant rumor of a male student getting hurt had spread.

Surrounded by many girls, a particularly petite blonde twin-tailed girl’s eyes widened.

“…That boy who got injured. Can you repeat his name?”

“Y-Yes. They say his name is Sir Protelclus Garland, from the lower noble class.”

The girl who answered looked nervous.

The petite twin-tailed girl’s face tightened into a frown.

Pressing her fingers against the wrinkle between her brows, she muttered softly.

“Tect… before even coming to greet me, he goes and gets himself badly hurt in the Orc Forest? What the hell is he thinking…!”

“L-Lady Aegis? What’s wrong? Why worry about something happening in the lower noble class?”

“It’s fine, thank you. It’s just… the name rang a bell. By the way, what was the name of the girl who brought that boy back?”

“I believe it was Miss Wiz Delphia.”

“…I thought so. I remember that name from the admission list of titled bloodlines.”

The girl called Aegis recalled the connection, and slowly her emotions began to rise.

“So that means… huh. Interesting. A girl from a titled bloodline? She let a boy get injured? Ran back in disgrace… and the boy in question just happens to be my Tect?”

She touched the desk lightly—then, with a flick of pressure, her finger gouged straight into the wood.

“Eek!”

“Oops. Guess I overdid it. No matter. Either way, a trashy girl who’d use a boy as her shield—she’ll need a proper greeting from me, as top of the class.”

She picked up the splinter of wood she’d broken and, with just the grip of her fingers, crushed it into dust.

On her face, a fixed smile spread wide—unnerving and eerie.

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Congratulations! Act 01 Complete!

Thank you always for the follows, ♡, and ☆!