This Novel is not my Novel

First, I should check the capsules I saw while Reisir was dragging me around this morning.

With that goal in mind, I mapped out the shortest route in my head and hurried off.

Unfortunately, several of them were no longer where I had seen them, presumably because someone else had found them first.

But among the remaining capsules, there was one containing a treasure note.

At last.

For the first time, I had found a treasure myself.

My joy lasted only a moment.

"If Reisir hadn't taken my treasure note this morning... I could have avoided the punishment...?"

"Myaaow..."

A sense of injustice welled up inside me for no good reason.

But what could I possibly do about it now?

"It's already over, so let's forget about it and be grateful for our current good fortune."

"Meow, meow!"

Yor nodded in agreement and gave me a firm thumbs-up.

Presumably, she meant that I had made the right decision.

Pret has probably secured at least one treasure already, but the others likely haven't had time yet, right?

Even so, I could not challenge Pret to a fight while wagering my one and only treasure.

Yor might be fighting alongside me, but there was no guarantee that we could defeat him.

The risk was far too great.

I concluded that it would be better to search for more treasure first and put that decision into action.

Perhaps because everyone had already searched most ordinary locations during the morning, hidden capsules were now nearly impossible to find.

For that reason, I moved deeper into the mountain and climbed higher.

Thanks to that, I managed to find several more capsules over the next hour.

"Haaa... Why are they all duds?"

"Myaaow..."

Yor and I sighed side by side.

We might simply have been exceptionally unlucky, but I began to wonder whether the number of treasures remaining was itself pitifully small.

Could Professor Bjorn have prepared so many punishment headbands because he expected a lot of people to fail?

The moment that anxiety struck—

Rumble—!

The sky let out a deafening roar.

A lightning strike from a clear sky was an extremely rare phenomenon, but it could still occur naturally.

However, this was not some solemn scene before a dangerous battle where the original author needed to create a dramatic atmosphere.

There was no reason for the original author to describe such a rare natural phenomenon in the middle of children training together.

"It seems Reisir is fighting someone..."

For reference, lightning from the sky was Reisir's strongest means of attack.

Lightning fired from a weapon or his fingertips traveled horizontally, making its trajectory visible and allowing some degree of evasion or defense.

But a lightning strike came crashing down suddenly from overhead, making it difficult to respond to.

And its destructive power is simply greater.

That was because of the setting in which lightning-attribute Ether sent into the sky borrowed the power of nature and became even stronger.

Reisir could still control its power, of course.

But judging from the thunder I had just heard, it would do far more than leave someone tingling for a few moments.

A direct hit would probably knock them unconscious on the spot.

He could easily defeat most opponents using nothing but 【Spear Techniques】. And if he needed a ranged attack, directly firing lightning should have been more than enough...

If Reisir had gone so far as to call down lightning, there were three possible reasons.

He had decided to respect his opponent and fight seriously, he intended to carve the difference in their abilities firmly into his opponent's mind—

...or he believed his opponent was concealing their true strength and intended to force it out of them.

No matter how freely Reisir could inspect another person's status window using 【Truth-Reading Eye】, there were still areas that could not be understood without actually fighting them.

Through the way I have described the situation above, dear readers have likely already noticed.

I, the protagonist of someone else's novel, believed Reisir had used lightning for the third reason.

Helga, Lissy, and Sveinn, who were inexperienced in combat, could be excluded outright.

Vigdís and Ríolíkin had sparred with Reisir countless times while preparing for last year's martial tournament, so they already knew one another's abilities well.

That only leaves Pret and Fjodora, doesn't it?

Reisir was wary of both of them.

Pret because of his suspicious status as the heir to the head of the Information Guild, and Fjodora because she belonged to the imperial family.

Moreover, by remarkable coincidence, the two shared something else in common.

Because of the nature of their respective positions, both had reason to conceal their true strength, and both possessed the ability to escape alone in a crisis.

So although I did not know which of them Reisir was currently fighting, if he had gone so far as to use his strongest attack as a threat that was not quite a threat, then naturally it was because he intended to draw out his opponent's true ability.

When I reached that conclusion and deactivated 【Character Analysis】, another crack of thunder rang out.

I did feel the urge to go watch the battle.

But if I did, Reisir might take my one precious treasure from me yet again.

For now, let's focus on the treasure hunt. Being ☆Pretty Girl☆ was bad enough. I cannot become something like ♡Adorable One♡ or ♡Cutie Pie♡...!

I deliberately ignored the sounds in the distance.

Then I searched every place where a capsule might be hidden and moved in the opposite direction from the lightning strikes.

Or rather, I tried to.

The attempt failed because I encountered someone before I had taken even ten steps.

"Have you found any treasure, Pretty Boy?"

Her manner of speech alone made it obvious who I had encountered.

It was Fjodora.

Which meant the person Reisir was currently fighting had to be Pret.

This isn't how I wanted to find out...

Ideally, I wanted my first opponent to be someone I could defeat with certainty.

That way, I could increase my treasure count to two, and even if I later encountered someone strong and lost one, I could use the remaining treasure to make a comeback.

"Does Your Royal Highness the Princess... intend to fight me?"

"If you possess treasure."

I had hoped she was merely asking whether I had found any.

Instead, Fjodora answered as above, took a capsule from her bag, opened it, and showed me the treasure note inside.

Professor Bjorn's attention is probably focused on Reisir and Pret's battle right now...

I could gamble on that slim possibility, lie that I had no treasure, and avoid the fight.

But the risk was too great.

If I were caught, whether now or later, I would receive a punishment with no room for excuses.

After a brief hesitation, I eventually showed Fjodora the treasure I had barely managed to find, just as she had shown me hers.

"Only one?"

"Regrettably..."

"You will find it even more regrettable once I take it from you."

My fight with Fjodora had already been shown in Chapter 23, which was only one week ago in the story's timeline.

Neither Fjodora nor I had undergone any noticeable change in ability since then.

Therefore, I shall omit the entire battle and proceed directly to the result—

"Pretty Boy, your concentration becomes tremendous once battle begins, but it is unfortunate that you cannot maintain that state for long."

—this was how it ended.

I fought with everything I had, but before I could seize the advantage, I reached the limit of how long I could maintain 【Character Analysis】.

The result immediately led to my defeat.

"You merely pushed yourself too hard, yet now your nose is bleeding... Is your stamina not excessively poor? Could it be that last time, you did not strike your nose when you fell, but suffered a nosebleed from overexertion?"

Maintaining 【Character Analysis】 for a long period required mental strength, so stamina had nothing to do with it.

Still, the issue was effectively one of my weaknesses, so revealing the truth would be troublesome.

Although I might seem to use it constantly, 【Character Analysis】 was a skill with numerous restrictions, from its activation method to its maintenance.

Fjodora may be the original protagonist's absolute ally, but there is no guarantee she would keep the secrets of my skill...

Even if she did not report it to the Emperor, she might decide that those who fought alongside us with their lives on the line deserved to know and reveal it to the members of the special Awakened class.

And that would mean Sveinn, the traitor from the original work, would learn about it as well.

I hurriedly blocked my nose with the tissue Yor handed me and used that as an excuse to avoid answering.

"Regardless, a match is a match, so I will take the treasure. In exchange, I shall give you a Potion. Drink it and recover quickly."

Perhaps because she had once lost her ribbon while trying to hand me a Potion in Chapter 221, Fjodora did not take one from her Inventory until after she had received the capsule containing my treasure note.

I had Potions of my own.

Still, since I had accepted and drunk one last time, refusing now seemed rather pointless, so I accepted this one as well.

The bleeding stopped and my head cleared, but the sight of my empty bag filled me with desolation.

"Myaa... myaa..."

After Fjodora leisurely departed with my treasure, I dampened a handkerchief and wiped my face.

Yor looked dejected and expressed her apology.

The decisive reason we had lost was that I had failed to maintain 【Character Analysis】 and exposed a major opening.

Besides, my baby dragon is far greater than an eagle familiar, so the real problem was simply that I was weaker than Fjodora, wasn't it?

At least Yor had taken the role of ranged attacker and managed to make Fjodora feel threatened.

Even so, Yor was apologizing to me.

I had deflected every attack aimed at Yor with my whip so that my baby dragon could focus entirely on attacking.

Perhaps she was blaming herself because, despite that, she had failed to land a decisive blow on our opponent.

"You have nothing to apologize to me for. Yor, you performed your role more than well enough. If anything, I should be apologizing. I should have held out longer and created more opportunities for you to attack..."

"Meow, meow!"

Just as I did not want to shift responsibility onto Yor, Yor apparently had no desire to shift it onto me.

My chest tightened with emotion.

What I wanted more than anything was to pull Yor into my arms right then, shower her with kisses, and proclaim that she was the greatest baby dragon in the world.

But Professor Bjorn might be watching us through an artifact, and someone else might be nearby.

I postponed expressing my feelings and resumed the treasure hunt for the time being.

Time passed and continued to pass until only thirty minutes remained before the end of class.

"How... does this make any sense...?"

"Myaaow?!"

My bag was still empty.

In other words, I had ultimately failed to find even one treasure.

Because of that—

"Gasp...! P-Pretty Boy...!"

—even when I encountered Lissy carrying a visibly bulging bag, I could not take any of her treasures.

"You may pass."

"You're... not challenging me to a fight...?"

"I cannot."

"Oh... dear......"

After showing her my empty bag and exchanging those words, I had no choice but to part from her beneath a gaze overflowing with pity.

"Even if I found one treasure right now, there is no way I could increase the number to five within the remaining time... is there?"

"Myaaow..."

I should give up now.

Even as I trudged toward the mountain entrance with that thought, lingering attachment made me continue searching here and there.

I did eventually discover one treasure.

But I was not happy in the slightest.

If anything, it only made me angry, as though someone were mocking me.

For that reason, when I spotted the protagonist of someone else's novel standing idly near the entrance, I was seized by an urge to throw the treasure capsule at his delighted face.

I took the capsule from my bag and toyed with it, only for him to speak first.

"Are you going to wager that treasure and fight me?"

"No. I'm trying to decide whether you would quietly let it hit you if I threw it at your face right now."

"Why would you even think of something like that...?"

"Because you would never let me land a clean hit during a battle. But when we're not fighting, you usually just let me hit you. If you're going to take my treasure anyway, I thought I might feel better if I managed to hit you at least once."

"Ahahaha! The more I watch you, the more I think Pretty Boy has a strangely unpredictable side."

"I wasn't joking."

"Neither was I."

If we compared how serious we were right now, I was confident I stood several levels above him.

I was just taking position to prove it by hurling the capsule with all my strength when—

"It looks like you have one already, so I only need to give you four, right?"

The protagonist of someone else's novel...

No.

An unbelievable statement came from Reisir's mouth.

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