The Crown Prince Who Raises a Side Character

Dormitory, private room.

Eris ran her eyes over the page of the book she was reading once more.

The protagonist, caught in a trap thanks to the betrayal of a trusted ally.

All their former companions had either fallen or were stuck elsewhere, and the protagonist himself was on the brink of collapse.

Just as all hope seemed lost, a former villain—one the protagonist had defeated in the past—appeared to rescue him.

The villain mocked him as pathetic, while the protagonist bristled at the insult and pulled himself back to his feet.

Two blades that once clashed were now pointed in the same direction.

And then—

[─Please look forward to the next volume!]

“AAAAARGH!!”

Eris clutched her head and let out a scream.

Anyone who only knew her as the cool, mysterious student would have doubted their eyes. Thankfully, the soundproofing in the private dormitory rooms was excellent.

Eris groaned in despair.

“Why, why are all the books that guy gives me like this?!”

Cut off right when the heroine was about to confess!

Or when the protagonist awakened a new ability!

Or just as the long-suffering protagonist was about to finally take revenge on the villain who tormented them!

Every single time, the story got chopped at the most critical, heart-pounding moment—it was enough to drive a reader insane.

If the book had at least been boring, she could’ve just thrown it aside. But the fact that it was good made it all the more infuriating.

“Haa...”

Letting out a deep sigh, Eris turned to check the time.

There was still a bit of time left before classes began, but not quite enough to justify going back to sleep.

Besides, thanks to the magic tome, she wasn’t feeling tired anyway—so she got herself ready a little early and left the dorm.

“Oh my, Eris. You’re out early.”

At the entrance of the training school.

A middle-aged woman with a warm presence greeted Eris cheerfully.

Eris bowed politely.

“Good morning, Professor Wiston.”

“No need for formalities, it’s not even class time yet. Just call me Mary, like before. Unless you really hate calling an old lady ‘sister.’”

The casually teasing remark, laced with a hint of barb, made Eris smile wryly.

Mary Wiston.

One of the professors at Aldridge Training School, and the “big sister” figure among the disciples of Archmage Delphinaris, just like Eris.

Delphinaris’s disciples were bound up in all sorts of complex rivalries and politics, so they weren’t exactly on friendly terms—but even so, everyone behaved when Mary was around.

Eris wasn’t much different. She promptly raised the white flag and changed her wording.

“Mary, then.”

“There we go. That’s all I wanted. All the other kids act like they’re too grown-up now, and it’s honestly kind of sad, you know?”

“They’re probably just embarrassed to say it in front of others. I’m sure if it were a place where no one was watching, they’d act differently.”

Mary’s eyes widened at that.

As if Eris had just said something astonishing.

Eris tilted her head in confusion.

She hadn’t said anything strange, had she?

“...You’ve changed a bit lately, haven’t you, Eris?”

“Changed?”

This translation is the intellectual property of Novelight.

“The old you would’ve just gone, ‘Oh, I know, right? That’s so unfair,’ and brushed it off. You never used to care what others were thinking or why they were reacting a certain way.”

“......”

It was a blunt observation—one that might have been too direct coming from anyone else. Eris found herself momentarily at a loss for words.

Not because she thought Mary was wrong. On the contrary, Eris felt her words had hit the mark.

The old Eris wouldn’t have tried to understand others from their point of view.

No, she wouldn’t have cared in the first place.

With her mind consumed by studying magic and improving her own skills, she didn’t have the energy or interest to spare for things like that.

But the Eris of now had said it so naturally, without even realizing it—predicting and explaining someone else’s mindset like it was second nature.

Why was that?

‘...Because I’ve been exposed to it nonstop.’

Novels don’t always follow only the protagonist’s perspective.

They often show how others perceive the protagonist’s words from an outside point of view—or even dive directly into another character’s emotions and thoughts.

So when Eris heard Mary’s remark, she hadn’t even needed to think about it.

She just instinctively imagined what it would be like in that situation—and how someone might act because of that.

It wasn’t something she’d studied or tried to memorize.

It was more like... a natural realization. That someone’s intention A could be interpreted as B by someone else.

Mary must’ve noticed the slightly dazed look on Eris’s face, because she suddenly grinned mischievously.

“You know, I’ve been meaning to say—you look a little more lively these days. Did you meet someone special, by any chance?”

“No. What do you mean, ‘someone special’? Nothing like that.”

Eris frowned seriously.

Meeting that foul-mouthed, creepy, infuriating librarian did not qualify as a “special encounter.”

“Maybe if you said ‘unpleasant,’ ‘creepy,’ or ‘infuriating,’ sure. But ‘special’? No way. That word does not apply.”

“Fufu, yes, yes. I understand.”

To Eris, Professor Mary’s words sounded like nothing more than empty platitudes, no matter how she looked at them.

Because in the romance novels she’d read, the way characters would look warmly at a heroine who stubbornly denied her own feelings felt exactly like this moment—

‘—Wait, no! That is not the kind of example I should be thinking of right now!!’

Eris rubbed her face with both hands.

For some reason, she felt this uncontrollable urge to scream and flail her fists and feet at the air.

The more she objectively recognized how she must look to Mary right now, the more intense that urge became. But when she curled up to suppress it, the act of doing so only made her more acutely aware of how she was behaving—an endless spiral of horror.

Never in her life had Eris felt so painfully the truth of the phrase “too much knowledge is a curse.”

At first, Professor Mary had looked on with a warm smile, but perhaps realizing that if she left things as they were, her fellow disciple’s face might quite literally explode, she hurriedly changed the subject.

“Ahem. More importantly, Eris, keep next weekend free.”

“Free...?”

“We’re gathering at Master’s estate. She’s taking on a new disciple, and while not everyone will come, it’s only proper for those who can make it to show up.”

As a living national treasure of Ravellocia, Delphinaris occasionally accepted promising youths as her disciples, contributing to the nation by cultivating new talent.

Students accepted as Delphinaris’s disciples would typically train under her for about one to two years, and after that, they’d go their separate ways. But whenever a major event occurred, they would gather again like this.

Since Eris had been taken in by Delphinaris at a young age and trained for over five years, she was quite used to such events. She had no objections to attending.

In fact, having recently powered through several theory books and grown in strength, she felt a bit eager to show off to her teacher.

Still, she couldn’t help but have one lingering question.

“But... isn’t this the wrong time for Master to be taking on a new disciple?”

A 6th-rank mage can suppress physical aging and maintain a body close to its prime, but even so, there are limits to extending one’s actual lifespan.

Unless one resorts to forbidden magic and becomes a lich, or receives a divine blessing directly from a god, even a 6th-rank mage typically has a maximum lifespan of about 150 years.

That was the record left in the archives, anyway—most believed the real average was even shorter.

Delphinaris, who looked like a middle-aged woman much like Mary, had in fact already passed the age of ninety.

It «N.o.v.e.l.i.g.h.t» would be an exaggeration to say death was imminent, but it wouldn’t be strange for her to begin preparing for the end of her life. As such, the archmage of Ravellocia had been taking on fewer and fewer new disciples over the years.

Rather than personally seeking out talented students as she had before, she now only accepted the bare minimum—one or two every two years—usually at the request of the royal family.

So for her to suddenly accept a new disciple outside of that cycle—Eris couldn’t help but feel curious.

“I was wondering about that too, so I asked around. Apparently, the new student isn’t going to live and train with Master like we did. He’s already attending the training school. I think she’s just giving him the occasional bit of advice, so it’s probably not a big deal.”

“Do you know anything about him? The new disciple?”

“I heard he’s the adopted son of Count Grimloon? That man’s always treated Master with a great deal of respect—he even sends her regional specialties every year as gifts. Maybe she’s just repaying the favor.”

Mary’s explanation didn’t seem particularly suspicious.

There’s a big difference between personally taking someone under your wing and simply offering occasional guidance.

And it wasn’t strange for her to show a little extra consideration to the adopted son of a friendly noble.

But still...

Eris couldn’t shake a vague discomfort.

While wondering where the feeling came from, she recalled something she’d heard the other noble girls at the training school gossiping about.

「Did you hear? Apparently there’s a total weirdo over at Lowten Training School.」

「A weirdo?」

「Yeah, Count Grimloon’s adopted son. He’s totally hopeless in theory classes, but no one can keep up with him in practicals. Rumor is he might even be one of the representatives for the upcoming exchange event.」

“......”

A brilliant eccentric.

And possibly—someone Eris herself might have to face in the near future.

A person like that, someone her esteemed master had gone out of her way to accept outside the usual schedule.

It was reading too much into things.

Just a string of coincidences, nothing more.

That’s what Eris’s rational mind whispered to her.

But deep in her heart, an instinctive sense of discomfort and wariness surged up.

It was the kind of wound—no, trauma—that had been carved into her as a child when she overheard her teacher’s passing complaints.

“Do you think I’ll lose?”

Eris’s eyes narrowed coldly.

Her once-wide perspective, once again, had begun to close in.