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 15: The Fierce Little Princess

Chapter 15: The Fierce Little Princess

Ever since that martial-arts class incident, Narcis had stopped trying to pick fights with me directly.

That didn’t mean he stopped glaring daggers whenever we passed, or clicking his tongue like I’d just stepped on his shoes.

Seriously? The guy ran away and still had the nerve to act tough? Made me want to beat him down on the spot.

But every time I got riled up, Wiz held me back.

“N-No, Tect! I understand how you feel, but boys shouldn’t be rough with each other!”

Ghh… talk about frustrating.

She had a point. Narcis’s biggest shields were his noble status and his wall of girls. Even if I landed a clean hit and bolted, everyone would know who started it—no hiding afterward. Bad move.

So I settled for glaring right back, clicking my tongue, or muttering “Just you wait…” whenever we crossed paths.

Yeah. He’d basically become my clicking rival. Every encounter: mutual “tch.”

Wiz, meanwhile, was being cautious around Narcis for political reasons… but “quiet and reserved”? Not even close.

She stuck to me even more than before, and anytime someone from class tried to get near, she bared her metaphorical fangs at them.

Honestly, it looked like she was growling. Definitely in her growly phase.

Every morning she waited outside the boys’ dorm until I came out, and every night she insisted on escorting me back like my personal bodyguard.

From a guy’s point of view, it would’ve made more sense for me to walk her home. But the one time I offered, she looked at me like I’d spoken an alien language—so I stopped trying.

What did bug me, though, was where Wiz went after we parted ways at night.

“…That’s not the way to the girls’ dorm, is it?”

Every night when we split up, Wiz always walked off in the opposite direction. I figured she was just taking care of something on her own and didn’t pry, but still…

Lately, though, the other girls in class seemed downright scared of her. Even her usual light growl or sharp look was enough to make them squeak a “kyah!” and flinch.

And the way the girls who’d once pinned us down—or even the martial-arts teacher—kept nervously trying to stay on Wiz’s good side… yeah, that left an impression. Seriously, Wiz, what did you do?

Anyway, despite all the small shifts, thanks to Wiz’s presence things stayed relatively peaceful for a while.

“…Tect, why are your scores in Magic Theory so high?”

“Huh? Oh. Well, you can’t counter spells if you don’t understand them. Plus, I use magic knowledge when building weapons like the pile bunker.”

“That makes sense… ah, sorry. I just mean, boys usually can’t use magic, so they tend to struggle in those classes. But you’re amazing, Tect…”

This happened in the academy courtyard while we were comparing returned quizzes.

Wiz pretty much aced every subject—she excelled at the bookwork. Thanks to my previous life’s knowledge, my scores weren’t bad either.

From what I’d heard, boys in this world were mostly treated like idiots. There was even a saying: it’s pointless for a man to study.

And yet, seeing how the boys here were constantly praised and pampered by the girls, I honestly couldn’t tell whether the world leaned male-supremacy or female-supremacy.

As for me—since I had to earn like a girl—I pushed myself hard at both studying and training.

The world was unfair.

“The outside ban still hasn’t been lifted! Which means no grappling hook making for me either!”

“W-Well… at least we’re allowed to go into the lower town now…”

Wiz tried to cheer me up while I sulked and complained.

Yeah… about that punishment we got earlier. Truth was, it wasn’t just one restriction.

Technically, we’d been hit with two punishments: one week banned from leaving school grounds, and one whole month banned from leaving the castle grounds.

The first one meant we couldn’t step outside the academy at all. The second meant we could at least go as far as the castle town—but no farther.

So while I’d been telling myself, “Just one week and I can go monster hunting again,” the reality was… nope. I was stuck for a whole month.

Honestly, I could cry. Should I? Maybe I will.

“Damn it… fine. I’ll just do what I can this month and build as much of the grappling hook as possible using non-monster materials.”

“Y-Yes! That’s the spirit! Let’s do our best with what we have, okay?”

Even though I was still grumpy, Wiz was doing her best to cheer me up. Sure, I’d been strung along with false hope, but sulking forever would just make me look childish.

I took a deep breath to reset my mood. Then Wiz asked,

“By the way, before you mentioned golems… so how exactly do you make a grappling hook?”

“Ah, well, the design’s actually kinda complicated.”

I pulled a blueprint out of my bag and spread it open.

“The basics were simple—strong rope, plus a mechanism that could launch it out and reel it back in. The tricky part was this—”

I tapped the claw-shaped tip drawn at the end of the rope on my blueprint.

“This bit here. It needs to be tough enough not to bend when it dug into a wall. But at the same time, it had to release when I wanted it to, and stay locked when I didn’t. That’s the real headache.”

“…So you’d need a mechanism that works through the rope itself…? No, wait. If the rope has to be insanely strong, then installing something delicate inside it would be next to impossible…”

As expected from someone who specialized in magic, Wiz could pick apart my design just by glancing at it.

In the end she reached the same conclusion I had. She sighed and shrugged.

“Yeah… looks like this is impossible without some kind of magical material.”

“Exactly. That’s why I need a golem’s core metal.”

Magical materials—stuff that usually showed up in dungeon loot—were rare substances infused with raw mana. 

I was confident I could build the rope and the reeling mechanism with my past-life knowledge and current training. But the claw tip was another story: it needed a material like golem core metal, something that could respond to the user’s will.

And right then—

“Sir Garland?”

Someone called out to me.

I turned, and standing there was a girl I didn’t recognize.

“Yes? Who are you?”

“Oh, the teacher was calling for you, Sir Garland. I just came to pass along the message.”

“Huh? Wonder what for. I don’t think I’ve done anything wrong lately…”

I felt a little uneasy, but when a teacher called, you couldn’t exactly ignore it.

So I gave Wiz a quick wave goodbye—her face full of suspicion—and followed the girl in the direction she pointed.

Meanwhile, Wiz’s eyes narrowed as she watched the girl who had suddenly appeared to call Tect away.

Why? Two reasons.

First, the girl’s uniform clearly marked her as high nobility. 

People from that rank had no interest in the lower-noble group. Unless their families had a formal patron-vassal tie, there was no way an upper-class student would be running errands for a teacher. That alone set off alarms.

Second, even for a teacher, if the teacher was a woman, personally calling a boy out was risky business.

In this world, boys were so rare and privileged that even a false accusation could ruin a girl’s life. One rumor of “she touched me” could be enough to force a female teacher into immediate retirement.

That was why the earlier incident could’ve exploded into a major scandal if he had raised his voice. Since he had brushed it off, Wiz was the one left to deal with the fallout.

In any case—those oddities left Wiz bristling with quiet suspicion, already half-rising from her seat.

And as it turned out—her instincts were right.

“You? The disgrace who couldn’t even protect Tect, despite that vaunted bloodline of yours?”

“—!”

Wiz dodged on instinct.

It had been a kick.

A sharp, sudden kick from a tiny girl—an attack that would’ve landed if Wiz hadn’t been momentarily off guard.

The kick sailed past Wiz and slammed into the bench.

The bench shattered like it was made of dry twigs.

―Smash. Literally in pieces.

Wiz sprang to her feet. The half-broken bench toppled with a loud clatter.

Then she finally looked at the girl.

She was extremely small—probably under 140 cm—with golden twin-tails that seemed to shine and big, slightly slanted eyes. Cute like a doll.

But Wiz didn’t have time to admire that cuteness.

“W-What’s with you—who are you!?” 

“Heh. I thought you were a mage type, but you move surprisingly well. If you can move like that, why couldn’t you protect Tect?”

The girl stared at Wiz with a razor-sharp glare.

Murderous intent. 

Wiz felt it slice right through her and tensed.

Still—after surviving an orc last week—this kind of push wasn’t going to break her. She squared her shoulders and readied herself.

“Answer my question! Who are you!? What do you want!? Are you someone related to Tect!?”

“That’s my line. Why are you sitting so proudly next to Tect when you’re the one who let him get hurt? I’ll kill you.”

The girl lowered her stance. Wiz wasn’t a martial-arts master, but she recognized that posture instantly—the prelude to an attack.

At that distance, she couldn’t dodge. She had just enough time to throw up a defensive spell—

—And then a familiar voice cut through the tension.

“Wiz—! The teacher wasn’t there. Was this another one of Narcis’s pranks?”

Right after that, the girl exploded into motion.

“Teeeeeeeeeeeeeeeect!!!”

But instead of charging Wiz, she barreled straight for him.

“Magic wa—eh!?”

“Whoa—!? Oh crap, it’s the young lady!”

“Tect! Tect! Tect! Why didn’t you come see me as soon as you enrolled!? Do you know how lonely I was!? I kept waiting, thinking you’d show up on your own—but you never came at all!”

She slammed into him and wrapped him in a hug. Since she was short, her face ended up pressed against his stomach, nuzzling like a needy puppy.

“H-Hey! Wha—!? That’s sexual harassment! Don’t harass Tect!”

“It’s not harassment, it’s just affectionate skinship between friends! Anyway, Tect—! Don’t call me ‘Lady!’ What are you supposed to call me? Hm? Hmmm?”

That murderous aura from before? Gone in an instant. The little girl was grinning like a mischief sprite as she demanded Tect’s attention.

Tect gave a wry smile and ruffled her head with a casual, “yeah, yeah.”

“Aegis, it’s been a while. I figured it’d be awkward for someone from the lower-noble class like me to just stroll into the upper-noble wing, so I held back. Sorry I didn’t come see you sooner.”

Wiz, on the other hand, was flabbergasted by his calm.

“H-He’s patting her head—h-he’s forgiving what just happened—th-th-that’s harassment, and he’s just—wa-wa—”

“Ah, right. Sorry, Wiz. Let me introduce her. This is Aegis. Aegis Gloria Aragonia. She’s the eldest daughter of Marquess Aragonia’s legal wife—my parents’ employer. And… my childhood friend.”

“C-Childhood… friend…”

The ultimate trope—childhood friends. Every heroine’s dream relationship in those stories.

And not only that: she was the eldest daughter of a marquess’s household. For a girl, that was top-tier pedigree.

The tiny girl who had everything Wiz secretly wanted—Aegis—

“Bleh.”

—clung to Tect with a smug little grin and stuck her tongue out at Wiz in triumphant glee.