I Think My Fiancé Has Regressed

Chapter 12: The Duke’s daughter’s revenge is not too late even if it takes 3 years (6)

‘Good morning, Mr. Manager.’

‘Uh, Deputy Kim. I’ve been waiting for you to show up for work because I needed to talk to you, and you should have seen you show up on time.’

‘I haven’t been able to leave work for days now.’

‘Uh-huh, talking back to an adult.’

‘Can you please find me someone who can program so I can get home from work? I don’t want Java or Python, I don’t even want someone who knows HTML or Epic. ….’

‘I told you that it’s hard to do that because the company is in trouble right now, but you know that the company provides a lot of support to Mr. Kim, right?’

‘I don’t need that, so I need an employee….’

‘By the way, Mr. Kim, when are you going to give me the artwork we each agreed to submit?’

‘What?’

‘We agreed in our last meeting that we should each submit one or two mockups, even if you’re not in the original art team.’

‘If I’m the only one on the programming team, and I’m the one who’s looking at fonts, how the hell am I supposed to develop for the release date….’

‘You’re the only one who’s busy? We all said we’d help out at ten o’clock in the morning. Why are you acting like a child?’

‘Then at least delay the release date….’

‘It’s not that time-consuming~. I tried it myself, and it’s just a matter of drawing on the board like this, and it’ll be done in no time. They’re not asking for anything fancy, just ideas, just ideas.’

‘…Okay, I’ll have it up by tomorrow morning.’

‘Yeah, yeah, yeah. Why don’t you hand-deliver it to the original art team and apologize for being late, okay?’

‘Yeah……….’

* * *

It was the kind of thing you could only forget if you tried to forget.

The two snakes painted inside the shield.

The sigil on the hilt of the Guardian Holy Sword, a sigil I had designed myself in a previous life.

The memory of the time I’d spent scouring the internet for resources to make it, and then tinkering with it in Photoshop to make it look reasonable flashed through my mind.

It was a past that made me cringe just thinking about it.

…Anyway, that’s probably not the point.

The fundamental question was, of course, whether this was the sword Alex had been using all this time, and why it had been found in his luggage.

If there’s anyone in this world besides me who knows of this sword’s existence, it’s probably Miss Sierra.

…What if, as Kael suspected, Alex and Sierra hadn’t broken up yet?

What if they’re just pretending to be, to get the other students, including me, to think they are?

The circumstances are suspicious, but probably not.

This sword is a sword whose whereabouts were deliberately hidden during the story until Alex’s father, King Constantine, showed up with it at the academy’s graduation ceremony.

To prevent the sword from being acquired by fraudulent means before the graduation event, it’s locked away in the royal warehouse, a place the player is not allowed to enter.

I’m the only one who knows about it.

In my previous life, I was the only one on the game development team, and nobody else really cared anyway.

“What else….?”

I pulled out one of the piles of luggage again and rummaged through it, just in case.

If there was another piece of equipment besides the Guardian’s Holy Sword, I’d have to do some serious digging to find out where and how he got it….

“What are you doing, Ariana?”

“Aaaaaaand I’m not doing anything!”

“Huh?”

At the sudden voice calling out to me from behind my back, I hurriedly closed the bag I was opening and turned around.

When I turned, I saw Alex, who had somehow managed to wake up, turning his tired eyes towards me.

“…….”

“…….”

Uh, how am I supposed to defend myself, doesn’t this situation look suspicious to say the least?

A Young Lady going through her fiancé’s luggage while he’s asleep, and what if I look like a suspicious woman to Alex?

But just as I’m preparing myself for a scolding, I get a response from Alex that suggests it might be.

“Yeah, if Ariana says so, I guess.”

“What?”

But Alex, who I’d expected to be angry or reprimand me for going through his luggage without permission, instead gave me a look of understanding.

“Aren’t you angry?”

“At you? In what capacity?”

“Because I went through the prince’s luggage at will….”

“Anything Ariana does, even if it seems suspicious or strange, she does it because she has an agenda, and I promise never to question anything you do again.”

“Thank you….”

Grateful for Alex’s unconditional trust, I quietly closed the lid on Alex’s box of luggage I’d left open.

“Did you find what you were looking for? What do you need?”

He asked me what I was looking for in his luggage.

I appreciate the trust, but it’s a little overwhelming.

“…Then I’d like to ask you a question.”

But this is also a good time to ask Alex about the sword’s origins.

“I’ll answer anything.”

“This sword, where did you get it?”

Seeing the Guardian’s Holy Sword thrust in front of him, Alex didn’t hesitate to answer.

“I got it from an underground warehouse.”

“When you say underground warehouse, do you mean the royal warehouse?”

“Yes, that’s right.”

Alex is the First Prince, so it shouldn’t be too hard for him to get into the royal warehouse.

“Why?”

Now that I’ve figured out how to get in, it’s time to ask about his motive.

Even if Alex knew that a sword like this existed in the royal vault, he wasn’t the kind of person who would go out of his way to retrieve an artifact like this.

He’s more likely to spend his energy upgrading himself than upgrading his equipment, which is why this late-game piece of equipment would be so much more effective.

And yet, the fact that he would go all the way down to the basement and come out with this deceptive item was a far cry from his usual behavior.

“Because I needed it.”

“Why?”

“I need this sword to deal with the demon nests beyond the border. If I had to enchant and attack every single one of them, I would have run out of time.”

“Demon nests beyond the border….”

To be sure, we did save that for later in the game.

I remember purposely making it harder to destroy with other characters’ stats to showcase Sierra’s abilities.

Of course, having Sierra makes it a little easier to clear, but the other characters are still capable of destroying it with good skill chaining.

“Is this something you should do now? It’d be better to wait until after you graduate from the Academy and work with your entourage to defeat them.”

“No, I have to do it now. I can’t trust the future.”

“What?”

“…It can’t hurt to do it now, that’s why I’m saying it.”

…Well, I certainly agree that it’s good to remove future anxiety in advance.

I’m not sure what caused Alex to suddenly become so obsessed with destroying the demon nests, though.

I wonder if the fact that I haven’t heard from him in the past winter has something to do with it.

“Prince, be honest with me.”

“Yes.”

“What were you doing last winter break, where were you?”

Alex thought about my question for a moment, and then gave me the answer I expected.

“…I was traveling outside the borders, taking care of any nests of demons that might be a future threat.”

“Alone?”

“Dale was with me.”

Which means he was pretty much on his own.

“Why do you have to be so reckless? Don’t you realize how dangerous it is to go out on your own to destroy a demon nest?”

“It’s what I have to do. I know where the nests are, and I know how to destroy them.”

“Then you should have at least taken Kael with you, or worse, me!”

“I can’t. It’s too dangerous.”

“Who knows how dangerous it is…!”

Alex’s second finger touched my lips, and I had no choice but to stop the words that were shooting out of my mouth.

“You don’t have to worry about it. Everything’s fine.”

“…….”

“Ariana, I’m doing this for you, and I know you’re still suspicious of what I’m doing, but I need you to trust me.”

…You sound very strange.

“I’m doing this for you,” is that a line from some chick-lit romance novel?

I mean, I was in a romance game, so it was a perfectly normal line to say.

“Hey, we’ll save that for another time!”

“Do you trust me?”

“If I don’t believe you, Prince, who will?”

Wanting to hide my blushing face, I quickly stood up.

“Oh, anyway, I don’t want you to do anything dangerous by yourself! In the future, you should at least say something to me.”

“…I’ll try.”

“Well, I’m going to head back to my room now, and I’ll see you in class tomorrow, Prince Alexandros.”

As I was about to open the door and walk out of the dormitory, I heard Alex’s voice calling out to me once again.

“…Please call me Alex.”

“What?”

“I want you to call me Alex, not Prince or something stiff like that…. I know it’s a shameless and insensitive thing for me to ask, but….”

“…….”

“It’s a wish, I’m begging you, please….”

He was saying it with a pitiful face, as if he was recalling a painful memory, so I couldn’t even think of the option of refusing.

…And besides, I’m more comfortable calling him Alex, because I like it better.

“Okay, I’ll see you tomorrow, Alex.”

“…Thanks, Ariana, I really do….”

A wistful smile crossed Alex’s face, and I made eye contact with him one last time before quietly closing the door to his dorm.