What If the Strongest Villain from the Original Story Became the Protagonist's Ally?

“Well then, thank you for today, Nana.”

We managed to return to our rooms without anyone noticing.

I parted with the somewhat sleepy-faced Nana in front of our rooms. Opening the door and entering the room, I locked it and sat on the bed, then took out the artifact I’d stolen today.

“Now… there’s no problem while I have this, but—”

The next problem was the bandits.

They probably knew the treasure vault’s location. Otherwise, they couldn’t have stolen this treasure so precisely.

“Is there a traitor inside the royal palace, or do they have some kind of artifact for that?”

I couldn’t completely rule out coincidence either.

Right now I was simply lacking information. If trouble was going to happen, I wanted to prevent it beforehand.

As a sure method, if I was just going to wait for the bandits, I could wait inside the treasure vault. The opponents would come on their own.

But then Iris would find out I’d broken in.

When it went missing, the first suspects would be Nana and me, but this world had no surveillance cameras or fingerprint matching machines.

They probably couldn’t punish me with circumstantial evidence alone.

So I was completely planning to play innocent. Because of that, I didn’t want to increase the evidence too much.

“If only the bandits would say ‘We’re bandits so please catch us~’…”

I put the black sphere in a bag and rolled onto the bed.

In the end, I had no choice but to run around town searching or coincidentally encounter bandits. I could only rely on my own luck, but unfortunately I wasn’t confident in my luck.

What were the odds of coincidentally running into the target bandits? I wanted to make that retort.

“Can’t be helped. I’ll improvise something.”

It would be sufficient even after the event started. I’d recovered the artifact that was the biggest anxiety factor.

I’d leave the outside monsters to Iris and company, while I punished the bandits in the meantime.

Thinking that, I felt at ease.

I closed my eyelids and let my consciousness fade.

▼△▼

The next day.

As usual, Iris unlocked my room and came in, dragging me to morning training.

After defeating Iris as always, I went to the academy with Iris and Nana.

While being approached by female students who knew my real face and earning Iris’s jealousy, a male student approached.

The guy who’d bothered me before… some duke’s son. I’d forgotten his name.

“Hey you.”

“………..”

“Hey! You there, suspicious masked man!”

“…What.”

Just when I’d been happily talking with Iris and the others, he suddenly broke the atmosphere. When I replied coldly, the duke’s son said with veins bulging on his forehead.

“Tch! You’re Princess Iris’s guard, right? That means you have ability, right?”

“Who knows. I don’t think Princess Iris chose me based on ability alone. Right?”

“! Th-that’s not true…”

Iris blushed and hmph averted her gaze.

Her attitude was as if affirming my words, making the duke’s son’s expression distort even more. He’d been fairly handsome originally, but now he’d completely become a comic relief character.

“Grrr…! Hey!”

“So what is it…”

“This afternoon, I challenge you to a fight. Don’t you dare run away!”

“Eh? I don’t want to though.”

Why did I have to fight you as a matter of course?

I hated bullying the weak.

“Why not!? Show your prowess as a guard! This is an order!”

“Only I can give orders to my guard. Are you aware of this when making such statements, Duke Conrad’s son?”

“P-Princess Iris…”

The heated duke’s son expression turned blue. Hastily, he shook his head sideways.

“N-no! I didn’t mean it that way…”

“Then what did you mean?”