Chapter 56 56: Let Us Begin in Earnest (1)

A few days passed since I entered the Illusory World of the Red Contract. Rather, a few days have passed since I became the bodyguard and personal attendant of the Young Lady Archduchess, Lucretia de Cristina-Rasa. Mission status report: No progress has been made regarding the Protagonist's assassination. Well, obviously. As the saying goes, Rome―or in this case, an unmatched level of trust―wasn't built in a day, or even in a matter of days. Even if the setting were that of an easygoing dating sim. To put it into perspective, I had already spent more time here than in any of the previous three Contracts, and with effectively zero development since the first twenty-four hours had elapsed. I don't know if I've simply been unlucky, but I haven't had any further encounters with any of the other 「targets of interest」 ever since our first meetings on the first day. On the other hand, I have been able to have brief conversations with the Protagonist every once in a while. Unfortunately, she's quite the bore, and I personally don't understand how so many high-status individuals would fold and swoon so quickly for such a, frankly, one-dimensional girl, but I suppose the only thing that really mattered was the fact of their bewitchment anyway. Well, they are kids, so they're probably unused to feeling all sorts of emotions, too. At the end of the day, whether it was the plot or their own unfortunate biology that determined they must fall in love with her, that's what the reality is. The dialogue between me and the Protagonist hasn't resulted in much other than perhaps a slight increase in affection, though since that isn't something I can physically see or measure for myself, I'll have to be patient and just hope it's working. Incidentally, I did wonder what determined the choices made by the Protagonist whenever she interacted with a love interest. As, well, this was a separate world independent from the game itself, that should have meant that there was no player, and the Protagonist was actually making her own choices, right? I didn't think too much into it. It could only really boil down to her having a predisposed character in the original game settings, which was then 'ported over' to this Illusory World, as you might put it, and that rough explanation made enough sense for me to stop questioning it any further. Still, it made me recall the possibility of a polygamy or, as Ina would put it, a 'Harem Route'. If things did come down to that, then I'd need to work harder to win her over by myself. I'm not too worried, though. Anyway, as it became apparent to me that there wouldn't be a 「scene」 occurring every single day, I came to the firm realisation that this whole Contract might really take up the full few months given to complete. Once again, and I couldn't stress it enough, it all depended on how much I would need to raise my own affection for the Protagonist to trust me enough to reveal her hidden power. Even at that point, it would still only be halfway done. After all, I might need to figure out a way to deal with whatever her hidden power is even after she tells me... but, well, that's something I don't have to worry about until I find out what it actually is, anyway. Because I can't really prepare for something when I don't know what it is. More importantly, upon coming to the understanding that I would be spending a more extensive time here than I initially thought, I made the difficult decision to at least cut down on, though not cease entirely, the amount of time I spent sitting down doing nothing and staring into space. I would probably be here for a while, so no matter if I wanted to just sit idly by myself in the gardens during Lucretia's lessons to recharge, I should really do something more productive. I really, really didn't want to. But, at the end of the day, it could also be counted as part of my job, so there was no helping it. Therefore. Swoosh-! Swoosh-! Swoosh-! I decided to take a lesson out of the book of my very first Contract. Swoosh-! Swoo-- "Argh, fuck. My shoulder..." As a result of swinging around the Holy Sword in an attempt to replicate the bizarre movements I echoed back then, I injured myself. The weapon was surprisingly light for its gilded, extravagant appearance, but apparently it didn't matter when I was being an idiot. I lacked many of the things from back then, including a training dummy to practice with and, perhaps more importantly, an instructor to guide me and correct my mistakes, so maybe that's why I ended up like this. "Can I keep going...?" Click-! "Ah-ah-ah-ah, ow...!" 'I guess I should take a break...' Pausing the strenuous movement, I was about to return the Holy Sword to the Storage before recalling what the Librarian mentioned about it having a limited use in Contracts. "Ahh... how much did you say I could use it before it ran out again?" [Certainly! Ermm, to be honest, I'm not entirely sure how much mana a single usage of the Storage requires, so I don't think I have a way of figuring that out...! I-It would be possible if I were the one responsible for managing all that technical stuff, but alas...] I didn't really understand what she was talking about, but I got the message that she couldn't do anything about it, and if that was it, then there was nothing I could do. "Right... well, it's fine. I'll just carry it around with me; since I'm a bodyguard, nobody should mind." [I-I sincerely apologise...! Before your arrival, I didn't realise you wouldn't have any mana at all, so I never even considered it to become a potential issue―if I had known, I would have made sure to figure it out...! Truly!] "I said it's fine, so don't worry about it. All I have to do is make sure I limit my usage, anyway." Lightly sighing, I took a seat on my favourite garden bench and reflected on my new training, rubbing my sore shoulder absentmindedly. 'Ow... was my posture just bad? Or did I have the wrong form when swinging...?' I tried imitating the training I had done as a newbie knight in the first Contract, but quickly realised that I actually had no idea what I was doing. Because I was focusing wholeheartedly on how to kill the Protagonist at the time, I couldn't recall the instructor's words very clearly―that human tank gorilla, George, who thrashed the Hero effortlessly―but there was definitely something I did back then that I wasn't doing now, or vice versa. I wasn't hitting a target like I did back then, but shouldn't it be the actions themselves that matter the most...? I have no idea what I'm talking about, but I think that makes sense. In the first place, maybe copying the sort of training that rendered me to that kind of pathetic state was a foolish idea... Feeling awkward all of a sudden, I scratched the back of my head. "...Oh. Maybe I should've also warmed up first. Don't they say that's quite important when it comes to exercising...? We did do that back then too, I think..." 'I don't really remember...' Either way, there were probably more than a dozen things I had gotten wrong, and as a result of that negligence, my right shoulder ended up making a disconcerting clicking noise when I moved it a certain way, along with causing a sharp pain to shoot through one half of my body. I wasn't too worried because they had magic in this world; they probably had a way of fixing my shoulder in a jiffy like those knights did, and even if that wasn't the case, I could just do something else with my time. "It would've been good to get someone else to teach me, but considering my role as a bodyguard, I don't know if that would come off as a bit weird..." As I deliberated on such things, the academy bell eventually rang. Pushing myself up from the bench, I set the Holy Sword on my waist and turned towards the main academy building. 'Well, I guess I'll just see what's available.' Holding a faint hope that the Antagonist I currently served would be able to present a solution to my problem, I let off towards a certain classroom.